If Sword Art Online showed us a world where people couldn’t log off, Elon Musk pulled the opposite for Twitter and made it impossible for users to log on. It was evident that the social media site is currently having issues since Musk took over the company. However, the mess that was paid verification and Musk’s mixed-messaging when it comes to parody accounts is nothing compared to what has to be the worst decision that the company has done — removing two-factor authorization (aka 2FA).
Twitter user @CartoonBrains posted a warning to those with 2FA not to log off from the site. They believed that the service was shut down, and that Twitter users were unable to log in to their accounts. This is bad, considering that 2FA is used as an extra security measure to prevent hacking.
Unfortunately for users, the removal of F2A isn’t a bug; it was an intentional decision made by Musk after he announced that Twitter would be removing “microservices bloatware” and claimed that less than 20% are needed for the site. 2FA is part of the 80% that was pulled.
People were not happy that Musk removed 2FA, especially since it’s essential for online safety. At the moment, accounts that used randomized generated codes through their password management apps could still log in. However, it’s currently unknown if or when all 2FA features would be compromised, since only phone numbers and email-generated codes are completely offline.
Fortune reported back in mid-2022 that Twitter was breached and over 5.4 million accounts were compromised. While it’s unknown if the hacked data was released, Twitter advised users at the time to turn on 2FA. But thanks to Musk’s meddling, it seems that’s no longer the case. I would say “go contact support” if you need help logging back in, but there is a chance that those staff members were let go in the wave of recent layoffs.
