Twitter: Romance, business and campaigns born on the platform

By Zoe Kleinman

Technology editor

For those who work there and those who use it, Twitter continues to be on a rollercoaster under the leadership of Elon Musk, who bought the firm for $44bn (36.3m) at the end of October.

The tumult has brought into sharper focus some of the platform's failings. Like all social networks, Twitter has long grappled with problems regarding privacy, hate speech and abuse.

But for some of its roughly 300 million monthly users, it has also been a place where they have built businesses, found love, launched campaigns and raised awareness for issues that are important to them.

I spoke to three women who say being on Twitter changed their lives for the better.

I met the love of my life

Catherine Cooke is a teaching assistant

I didn't start out looking for romance. But what I did use Twitter for was support, it's quite an isolating thing going through a divorce. And you can of course talk to real-life friends and family, but sometimes they're a little bit too close. Sometimes it's just very useful to have a sounding board.