Twitter crashes for thousands of frustrated users around the world

Twitter is DOWN: App crashes for thousands of frustrated users around the world

  • According to Down Detector, issues with Twitter started at around 10:17am GMT
  • Users worldwide have complained of being unable to see tweets in their feeds  

Twitter has crashed this morning, leaving thousands of frustrated users unable to see tweets in their feeds. 

According to Down Detector, the issues started at 10:17 GMT (05:17 ET) and are affecting users worldwide. 

The reason for the outage remains unclear, although almost 3,000 issues have now been logged on Down Detector

Of those who reported issues, 62 per cent said they were having problems with the app, 34 per cent with the website and four per cent with the server connection. 

It comes just days after Twitter laid off another 200 employees, around 10 per cent of its remaining workforce, in the latest round of job cuts since Elon Musk took over last October. 

Twitter has crashed this morning, leaving thousands of frustrated users unable to see tweets in their feeds

According to Down Detector, the issues started at 10:17 GMT and are affecting users worldwide

WHAT ARE PEOPLE HAVING PROBLEMS WITH AND WHERE?

Of those who reported issues on the website Down Detector…

  • 62 per cent said they were having problems with the Twitter app
  • 34 per cent said they had issues with the website
  • 4 per cent were struggling with the server connection

The problem is frustrating users around the world. 

Almost 3,000 issues have now been logged on Down Detector in the UK, with people in London, Belfast and Cardiff complaining of having issues.

Users in New York, Washington and Boston also logged that they were experiencing problems with Twitter. 

The layoffs, announced on Saturday, brought Twitter’s workforce down to under 2,000 — a sharp fall from the 7,500 employed when the billionaire first took over.

On Sunday, Musk Tweeted: ‘Hope you have a good Sunday. First day of the rest of your life.’

The outages have been increasing ever since Musk began running Twitter, leading to speculation that there aren’t enough people to fix its problems.

In February alone, the site experienced at least four widespread outages, compared with nine in all of 2022, according to NetBlocks, which tracks internet outages.

Bugs, including those that have prevented people from posting tweets, have also been more noticeable, researchers say. 

In the past, Twitter prevented outages from escalating by having people around to diagnose and solve problems immediately, but there are now fewer engineers to tackle these issues.

Today, the majority of issues with Twitter in the UK were reported in major cities, including London, Belfast and Cardiff.

American users in cities such as New York, Washington and Boston also complained of having problems.

‘Welcome to Twitter’ was trending on the site this morning, with people complaining that a bug meant they were being greeted with the message you receive when first signing up to the social media platform.

One user, Natalie Ann Grace, tweeted: ‘Well my twitter is broken, can’t see any posts unless they’re in my notifications, my feed is replaced with the “welcome to twitter” thing you get when you sign up.’

Another, David Ziggy Greene, added: ‘Can’t view timeline or any tweets because after 9 years twitter has decided to welcome me & won’t let me see anything else.’

Beth Hawks wrote: ‘Anyone else getting a “welcome to Twitter” message when they log on as though they’ve never been on it before?’

Saturday’s job cuts targeted product managers, data scientists and engineers and include product manager and Musk devotee Esther Crawford who led the launch of paid subscription service Twitter Blue. 

She famously backed Musk’s ‘extremely hardcore’ Twitter 2.0 culture when he first took over, and was pictured on the office floor in a sleeping bag with a sleeping mask in November 2022. 

The layoffs impacted the largest number of people at the company since half the company was laid off in November last year.

Employees discovered they were set to lose their jobs after they found themselves unable to log in to their emails and work computers.

In the UK, the majority of issues with Twitter were reported in major cities, including London, Belfast and Cardiff

It comes just days after Twitter laid off another 200 employees , around 10 per cent of its remaining workforce, in the latest round of job cuts since Elon Musk took over last October 

Musk told employees during a meeting in late November that no more plans for staff reductions were being made.

At the time, Musk defended the decision to fire 3,700 people, saying: ‘There is no choice when the company is losing over $4mn/day.’

Last month Twitter changed its Twitter Blue service for users in the US so they could post tweets with up to a whopping 4,000 characters. 

However, a couple of hours later the company later said Twitter was not ‘working as expected’, before adding that it was trying to get the issue fixed. 

It was unclear whether the significant update to the character limit caused the technical problem, which left some users unable to tweet or follow other accounts. 

Musk later admitted: ‘Multiple internal and external issues simultaneously today. Should be fully back on track later tonight.’ 

Timeline of Elon Musk’s eventful time at Twitter so far 

October 27: Musk is officially made the new owner of Twitter, and tweets ‘the bird is freed’.

November 1: Musk confirms plans to change the system of ‘Blue Tick’ verification on Twitter, for a reduced subscription fee of $8 a month.

November 4: Musk lays off half of Twitter’s workforce as an alleged cost-cutting measure, claiming he had ‘no choice’. 

November 9: Musk launches the ‘Twitter Blue’ subscription service which verifies accounts for a monthly fee.

November 11: The Twitter Blue service is paused due to accounts purchasing verification and using it to impersonate brands and public figures.

November 12: Musk fires 80 per cent of Twitter contractors without warning.

November 15: Musk fires employees that posted negatively about him on the business messaging app Slack. The lawsuit between Musk and Twitter is dismissed.

November 16:  Twitter staff are told they need to sign a pledge to be able to stay on in their roles where they would be ‘working long hours at high intensity’ or receive three months of severance pay, resulting in a mass exodus.

November 18: A news-ticker was projected onto Twitter HQ in San Francisco dubbing Musk as a ‘space Karen’, ‘mediocre manchild’ and ‘bankruptcy baby’.

November 23: A Twitter user reported that 5.4 million phone numbers and email addresses leaked on the dark web, before his account was suspended. 

November 26: Financial Times revealed that 50 of the platform’s top 100 advertisers have paused their ads.

November 29:  Platformer reported that Twitter is in the process of reinstating around 62,000 banned accounts that each have more than 10,000 followers.

December 12: Twitter Blue is re-launched with new Blue Tick reviewing process.

January 11: Twitter starts automatically redirecting users to the ‘For You’ tab – its algorithmic feed of tweets – every time they open the app. 

February 8: Twitter expands the character limit to 4,000 for Twitter Blue subscribers in the US. Shortly after, the site encounters technical difficulties.  

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