In a major blow to the social media world, Twitter experienced a widespread outage that left thousands of users in a state of frustration and confusion.
Reports flooded in from over 5,000 individuals on the Down Detector site, highlighting issues such as the inability to retrieve tweets, missing timelines, and even disappearing, followers, Investors King gathered.
The cause of this disruptive episode remains shrouded in mystery, with no official comment from Twitter as of yet. Users took to various platforms to express their exasperation, as reports of the outage began pouring in around 12:19 pm and persisted throughout the day.
Three hours into the ordeal, the same problems persisted, intensifying the mounting frustration among users.
The outage primarily affected the Twitter app, with almost half of the reported issues originating from it. Another third of the complaints were related to the website, while the remaining glitches occurred on Twitter’s feed itself. For those still able to access the platform, the top trending hashtags became #TwitterDown and #RateLimitExceeded, a testament to the widespread impact of the disruption.
One of the most common error messages encountered by users was the dreaded “rate-limit exceeded” notification, appearing on their For You page. This page, typically abundant with personalized and curated content, suddenly seemed barren to those affected. Venting their exasperation, one user exclaimed, “Dear Twitter, I am not rate limited as there is no rate limit—sort this out NOW!”
As frustration mounted, many users turned to Twitter’s owner, Elon Musk, seeking answers and demanding transparency. Users emphasized the need to understand the root cause of these problems and the duration of the outage. One user pleaded, “It would help in the name of transparency if you answered this question, Elon?”
Some discontented individuals expressed their discontent with Musk’s leadership, comparing the frequency of issues since he took over with the relative stability before his tenure. The sentiment of one user echoed the sentiments of many others, stating, “I joined Twitter in 2009, and I’ve had more problems since Elon took over than the whole time before that. Insanity.”
Even those fortunate enough to maintain access to the platform expressed their dissatisfaction, highlighting the far-reaching impact of the technical glitch. As is customary during social media outages, memes and humorous content began circulating swiftly, providing a momentary reprieve from the exasperating situation.
This recent Twitter outage follows a significant disruption experienced by the platform in March, shortly after the company’s round of layoffs. During that incident, users were greeted with a welcome page, as if they were new to the site, and were encouraged to find people to follow. Unfortunately, there was no way to circumvent this message, rendering users unable to view their feeds or posts from those they already followed.
As Twitter grapples with yet another technical setback, users hope for swift resolution and stability to return to the beloved platform. The company faces mounting pressure to address the concerns and frustrations of its user base, which relies on Twitter for news, communication, and a sense of virtual community.
