Twitter had a roughly 90-minute meltdown for thousands of users Monday morning, and while the platform is back up and running, these things seem to be happening more frequently in the wake of Musk's mass layoffs.
A rough start to the week at Elon Musk’s Twitter, as KRON4 reports on a two-hour Twitter outage that affected thousands of users. According to KRON4, there were “error messages appearing for web links posted in tweets,” and “when clicking on links included in tweets, many users were greeted with a link that popped up reading ‘errors.’” The Associated Press adds that “Trying to visit Twitter’s help page Monday led to an error message that says ‘Your current API plan does not include access to this endpoint’ and displays a link to a software developer page that also doesn’t work.”
Some parts of Twitter may not be working as expected right now. We made an internal change that had some unintended consequences. We’re working on this now and will share an update when it’s fixed.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) March 6, 2023
At about 9:20 a.m. Monday morning, the official Twitter Support account posted “Some parts of Twitter may not be working as expected right now. We made an internal change that had some unintended consequences. We’re working on this now and will share an update when it’s fixed.”
The phrase “We made an internal change that had some unintended consequences” seems to be an apt summary of the entire Elon Musk Twitter regime.
This platform is so brittle (sigh). Will be fixed shortly.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 6, 2023
Musk himself now tends to respond to these things in the replies of his favorite shitposters. Above he notes that “This platform is so brittle (sigh). Will be fixed shortly.” In response to investor Marc Andreessen, whose firm put $400 million into Musk's deal, Musk gave the slightly more technical answer that “A small API change had massive ramifications. The code stack is extremely brittle for no good reason. Will ultimately need a complete rewrite.”
Oh, bet that “complete rewrite” is gonna go real well.
Things should now be working as normal. Thanks for sticking with us! https://t.co/JXTllrv0k0
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) March 6, 2023
Regardless, by 10:05 a.m., Twitter Support noted that “Things should now be working as normal. Thanks for sticking with us!” According to the website monitoring service DownDetector, the glitch lasted about 90 minutes, and its peak, generated just north of 10,000 outage reports.
*elon trips on his shoelaces and stumbles into scaffolding before getting paint cans stuck on both his feet, forcing him to wear them as shoes*
— Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) March 6, 2023
another nimble save, sir! the media is terrified! pic.twitter.com/3fpZga1grh
We can’t help but mention this outage comes barely a week after Musk’s latest round of layoffs, and is the second large-scale glitch the site has had since. But glitches have been common in Musk’s Twitter tenure.
“Three weeks ago, Twitter users encountered various issues with the platform, including the inability to tweet, send direct messages or follow new accounts,” as CNN reminds us. “Twitter has experienced a range of technical glitches since Musk took over the company and laid off more than half its staff late last year. Users have previously reported issues with the app’s two-factor authentication tool, seeing replies listed above a tweet rather than below it and seeing old tweets show up repeatedly in their feed or mentions.”
Related: Report: Angry Elon Musk Alters Twitter Algorithm To Force More People To See His Tweets [SFist]
Image: SAN FRANCISCO, CA - NOVEMBER 04: Twitter headquarters stands on Market Street on November 4, 2022 in San Francisco, California. Twitter Inc reportedly began laying off employees across its departments on Friday as new owner Elon Musk is reportedly looking to cut around half of the company's workforce. (Photo by David Odisho/Getty Images)
