DALLAS (WBAP & KLIF News) — If you’re worried about Facebook or Twitter crashing due to the high amount of online traffic on Election Day, you may be able to put those worried to bed — for now.
Despite Twitter’s roughly 320 million users and Facebook’s 1.6 billion, experts say both sites have continued to improve their infrastructure over the years, making it less and less likely a big event like the presidential election could cause traffic to bring the site down.
“The last time that happened, Twitter made a major architectural update,” said Chris Kraft, CEO of social media analytics company Share Rocket. “[It] has since seen some record-breaking spikes in usage and tweets per second.”
Moments like Ellen Degeneres’ selfie at the Oscars in 2014 and Kim Kardashian posing nude on the cover of Paper magazine have caused users to flock to Twitter in high volumes, thus crashing the site temporarily. Kraft says that won’t be a problem when millions more are expected to voice their opinions as election results start pouring in.
“The infrastructure has survived since they made that update,” he said. “So I don’t expect any major issues or interruptions with Twitter, Facebook or any of the social platforms on Election Day.”
He says most of the traffic will lean toward Facebook, with Facebook being more of an “engagement” site where users can engage in unlimited conversation without strict character limits. But Twitter will still likely be buzzing, especially considering how much both major presidential candidates have taken to the site throughout their campaigns.
“In 2016, even more money and focus and strategies and tactics have been used on Facebook and Twitter,” Kraft said, adding the Democrats led the charge in 2012 by really pouncing on social media after its early stages in the 2008 election.