Twitter admits “massive” outage as problems continue

SAN FRANCISCO: Twitter suffered a brief but unprecedented outage on Monday, with users worldwide reporting being unable to read links to articles from external sites.

“Some parts of Twitter may not be working as expected right now,” the company’s tech support account said in a tweet, blaming “unintended consequences” of an update to the platform for the issue.

The collapse, which appeared to be resolved in less than an hour, comes as Elon Musk’s social media giant sought to stabilize after multiple rounds of layoffs saw more than two-thirds of its employees laid off.

Experts say Twitter runs with a skeletal staff, leaving the platform vulnerable to outages as well as disinformation and malicious content as the site needs fewer numbers to keep it running.

During the outage, users attempting to click links were greeted with an error message stating, “Your API plan does not include access to this endpoint.”

An API, or Application Programming Interface, refers to Twitter software that is made available to external developers to make their own customizations of the platform.

Twitter said last month it was ending free access for outside developers as the company looks for new ways to generate revenue.

Ever since Musk took over Twitter, the platform has been in chaos, with major advertisers fleeing and threatening the site’s main revenue stream.

“One small API change had a massive impact,” Musk said in a tweet Monday about the disruption.

“The code stack is extremely brittle for no good reason. Will eventually have to be completely rewritten,” the billionaire said in reference to the platform’s programming and software.

The latest issues with the messaging platform came a week after reports of another round of layoffs, including product managers, big data experts and engineers working on machine learning and platform reliability.

– Technical pitfalls –

It also contributes to a number of technical glitches, including an incident where Musk’s tweets suddenly dominated the feeds of millions of users, even those who unfollowed the tycoon.

According to Insider Intelligence, total monthly Twitter users will decrease by about 32 million users between 2022 and 2024, compared to 368 million worldwide last year.

With many brands on the run, the social network saw revenue and adjusted profit fall about 40 percent year over year in December, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday, citing people close to the company.

Musk has tried weaning Twitter from ads and promoting subscriptions as a new way to make money — an idea Facebook owner Meta is also testing — but so far the results have been disappointing. –AFP