--- title: "New Twitter Bug Is So Embarrassing Our Heads Are Going to Explode" description: "A warning to the wise: a new Twitter bug is apparently resurfacing and restoring deleted tweets and retweets. This website is broken." date: "2023-05-23" modified: "2023-05-23" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/twitter-bug-embarrassing" categories: - "Future Society" tags: - "elon musk" - "social media" - "the digest" - "twitter" --- # New Twitter Bug Is So Embarrassing Our Heads Are Going to Explode ![A warning to the wise: a new Twitter bug is apparently resurfacing and restoring deleted tweets and retweets. This website is broken.]() *MIAMI, FLORIDA - MAY 06: Elon Musk, South African entrepreneur, business magnate and investor, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Inc and Twitter, guest of Red Bull Racing seen during Qualifying ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Miami at Miami International Autodrome on May 06, 2023 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Cristiano Barni ATPImages/Getty Images) \Image: Getty Images\* ## Magic Trick A warning to the wise: a new Twitter glitch is apparently resurfacing and restoring deleted tweets and un-retweeted retweets. "On May 8th I deleted my tweets (I know the date because I tweeted about it)," [tweeted tech journalist James Vincent](), who [reported on the issue for *The* *Verge*](). "But when I checked my timeline this morning, Twitter had restored some old re-tweets without warning. It's yet another illustration of Twitter's unpredictable infrastructure." Vincent isn't the one who seems to be having this issue, pointing to a [Mastodon toot]() from open-source developer Dick Morrell detailing a similar ordeal. "Last November I deleted all my Tweets. Every single one. I then ran Redact and deleted all my likes, my media and retweets. 38k tweets gone," Morrell tooted on May 17. "For six months I've had sub 5 tweets online." "Woke up today to find 34k of them restored by Twitter," Morrell continued, speculating that Twitter had "presumably brought a server farm back up." It's unclear how widespread the issue was, though [Morrell later told *ZDNet*]() that at least 400 people had responded to him saying that they were experiencing a similar issue. Alas. Another day, another nail in the burning coffin of this collapsing, [deeply broken]() Elon Musk vanity project. ## Servers Up, Service Down A Mastodon user going by the handle "mx alex tax1a," who according to *ZDNet*'s reporting is a former Twitter Site Reliability Engineer who worked on the social media platform's "core infrastructure provisioning automation team," took to Morrell's replies to agree with the developer's server thesis. "As an ex-twitter employee," [they wrote](), "this sounds a lot like they moved a bunch of servers between data centers and didn't properly adjust the topology before reinserting them into the network, leading to stale data becoming revived." Of course, there are numerous reasons why someone might want to delete old tweets. Some, like Vincent, have deleted tweets because they don't want to further access to be used to train machine learning systems. Some users may want to delete potentially problematic content, while other folks out there might be embarrassed by whoever they might have been circa 2011-2013 and want to delete any digital trace of said cringe-inducing self. But whatever your reason for choosing to scrub a social account might be, the fact still stands that you should just be able to do so reliably. This glitch sucks, and [in the words]() of a very perturbed Morrell: "Now re-deleting. This shows why you should NOT be using Twitter, ever." **More on other Twitter issues:** [*Elon Musk Obediently Censors Twitter When Dictator Tells Him To*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()