Twitter down: Platform hit by global outage with users unable to post

Downdetector received thousands of reports on the app and website for problems lasting 90 minutes

Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, California. AFP

Twitter on Wednesday said it was "working" to fix problems experienced by users on the social platform, marking the latest issue for the network owned by Elon Musk.

Users around the globe experienced an glitch that lasted for about 90 minutes, where they were unable to send tweets normally, instead getting an automated message saying they were “over the daily limit for sending Tweets".

The "daily limit" message is even being served to users who had not posted once during the day. The limit for tweets each day is 2,400, Twitter’s Help Centre says.

There were also reports of problems viewing direct messages, following new accounts and accessing Tweetdeck, the multi-tasking platform for using the social network.

"Twitter may not be working as expected for some of you," a tweet by its support division read.

"Sorry for the trouble. We're aware and working to get this fixed."

Some users were briefly able to get around the problem by scheduling tweets on Twitter's website, before normal posting returned.

Downdetector, a site that tracks technical cuts to apps, showed a sharp rise in user reports of trouble on the site, peaking at nearly 9,500 reports at 5pm New York time.

Error reports have slowly decreased since then, with some glitches still lingering for users.

Wednesday's problems are the latest under the helm of billionaire Mr Musk, who bought the platform last October.

On February 9, Twitter will force developers to start paying to use its API, a possible death knell for third-party apps and services accessing the platform for its content or data.

The Information reported that Mr Musk told employees on Wednesday to pause new feature development "in favour of maximising system stability and robustness, especially with the Super Bowl coming up".

Twitter's Development team tweeted after the glitches that free access to its API would be extended for four more days.

It is not clear if Wednesday's problems were connected to the API change.

Agencies contributed to this report