Widespread Problems Attributed To ‘Unintended Consequence’ Of Change, Company Says

Topline

Twitter was plagued Monday with its latest substantial glitch, as users broadly reported problems loading images and sharing external links in the latest technical headache for owner Elon Musk and an increasingly thin company staff.

Key Facts

Users started reporting problems around 11:40 a.m. Eastern time Monday, according to Downdetector, which noted the problems persisted into the early afternoon.

The problems were numerous and far-reaching: images were unable to post for many users, while external links were broken and companion apps like TweetDeck crashed.

Twitter Support tweeted just before 12:20 p.m. that the problems were a result of “an internal change that had some unintended consequences,” without specifying what the change was.

Many of the issues started resolving around 1 p.m. Eastern time, with Twitter Support tweeting at 1:05 p.m. that “Things should now be working as normal.”

Crucial Quote

“This platform is so brittle (sigh). Will be fixed shortly,” Musk tweeted Monday afternoon in response to a message criticizing users complaining about glitches.

Surprising Fact

Musk tweeted constantly throughout Monday’s glitch on a variety of culture war talking points, such as suggesting he will label CNN as “State Affiliated Media” on Twitter and claiming former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci “egregiously betrayed the public trust” through his warnings about Covid-19.

Key Background

This is the second time in less than a month that Twitter experienced major problems. Many users on February 8 were left unable to post tweets after the platform mistakenly stated they went over “the daily limit for sending tweets,” though the problems were largely resolved after an hour. Musk has significantly trimmed what he says was a bloated staff when he took over the company in the fall, cutting a workforce from around 7,500 down to fewer than 2,000. The latest round of job cuts came late last month, when Musk reportedly laid off around 200 employees, roughly 10% of the remaining staff. CNBC reported in January the company is down to fewer than 550 full-time engineers.

Further Reading

Twitter Facing Outage And Apparent Glitches—And It’s Unclear Why (Forbes)

In Latest Round of Job Cuts, Twitter Is Said to Lay Off at Least 200 Employees (New York Times)