Introduction
X/Twitter, the popular microblogging site now owned by Elon Musk, is currently facing a massive global outage. Both the website and mobile application are displaying a “Welcome to your timeline” message instead of regular tweets. With over 70,000 reports of the platform being inaccessible, users are left wondering about the cause of this technical snag.
Unexpected Outage Leaves Users Frustrated
The outage, which occurred around 11 am, has affected X/Twitter users worldwide. Downdetector, a service that monitors website outages, has recorded an overwhelming number of reports. However, the reason behind this issue is still unknown. Some users have even reported seeing ads and their own tweets on their profiles, but not on their feeds.
Limited Functionality and Confusion
While users are able to search for specific profiles, they find that posts are not visible. This limited functionality has led to frustration among X/Twitter users who rely on the platform for real-time updates and engagement. Instead, they are greeted with a “Welcome to your timeline” message, leaving them unable to access the content they desire.
Facebook Provides Temporary Respite
In response to the X/Twitter outage, several users have turned to Facebook to express their concerns and seek confirmation of the issue. Many users even jokingly remarked that they were “returning” to Facebook since the X/Twitter app was down. Despite the platform’s downtime, the hashtag #TwitterDown is trending on X/Twitter, highlighting the impact of the outage.
Recurring Outages Raise Concerns
This is not the first time X/Twitter has faced an outage. Earlier this year, the platform experienced downtime in March and July. In both instances, users encountered various issues, such as being rate-limited or experiencing problems with accessing links, images, and videos. The frequency of these outages has raised concerns about the platform’s reliability and stability.
Conclusion
The global outage experienced by X/Twitter has left users unable to access their timelines and tweets. As reports flood in, the cause of the technical snag remains unknown. Users have resorted to Facebook for updates and discussions, while the hashtag #TwitterDown continues to trend on X/Twitter despite the platform’s inaccessibility. With recurring outages, there is growing concern about the reliability and stability of the platform.
FAQs:
Q: Why is Twitter down?
A: Twitter experienced an outage due to a new set of limitations on the daily number of tweets users can read. This was an attempt to prevent unauthorized scraping of potentially valuable data from the site.
Q: What are the new limitations on Twitter?
A: Verified accounts on Twitter are limited to reading 6,000 posts per day, while unverified accounts can read 600 posts per day. New verified accounts can read 300 daily posts.
Q: What issues did users face during the Twitter outage?
A: Users reported problems such as difficulties in accessing tweets, receiving the error message “Sorry, you are rate limited. Please wait a few moments then try again”, and issues with website loading.
Q: Did the outage affect all users globally?
A: Yes, Twitter users on desktops were logged out from their accounts globally. The outage also affected thousands of users who were unable to sign in.
Q: Has the issue been resolved?
A: Yes, Twitter’s support account tweeted later that the issue was resolved and “things should be working as normal”.