Twitter has stopped working properly, with users being logged out and shown error messages.
The problems appeared differently for various users. Some were logged in but their feed would not load, while others could not get onto the site at all.
Error messages encouraged users to “try reloading”. But that did not appear to work.
Others told them to try logging out. That just meant they were unable to get back into the site.
In fact, there seemed to be no way of resolving the issue, which was present on all platforms. It was broken in its web and mobile versions, as well as the TweetDeck app.
Twitter does not run an official status page for normal users. It has a devoted page for its API – which is used by developers to create technology based on Twitter’s foundations – but that only showed “all systems operational”.
Twitter was once so well-known for outages that the “fail whale” that appeared to users became famous, but its stability has improved over time. Nonetheless, it has been hit by a number of outages in recent months – including one at the end of June that left users seeing pictures of animals.
Twitter’s outage comes at a significant time for the company: it has just launched legal proceedings in an attempt to force Elon Musk to follow through on his attempt to buy it.
Mr Musk has tried to exit the deal, arguing that the company did not give him full or accurate information on the amount of bots and fake accounts on the platform.
But Twitter has said that Mr Musk’s objections are inaccurate, and that courts should force him to complete the $44 billion buyout.
