Site formerly known as Twitter down as thousands of X users report problems

21 December 2023 , 06:36

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X users are reporting issues with the social media platform (Image: Idrees Abbas/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock)

Thousands of users were experiencing issues with social media platform X, formerly Twitter for nearly an hour this morning.

The website Downdetector, which tracks online outages, shows thousands of people have taken to the site to report issues with the platform’s app and website. Almost 4,000 outage reports had been made to Downdetector as of 6am.

Some users attempting to log into their X accounts were finding their timelines empty, with the home page displaying only the message: “Welcome to X!” The message continued: "It's empty now, but it won't be long. Start following people and you'll see posts show up here."

The platform did appear to allow users to continue posting, despite them not showing up, as the hashtag #TwitterDown started trending within minutes of reports of the outages emerging. One person wrote: "I can't do anything it acts like my account is new, anyone else?"

Down Detector has received thousands of reports of issues

Another said: "The page is completely offline, also can’t see anything in search bar, only thing I can see are notifications and that’s it. Can’t see any tweets." The latest outage comes after the service went down in March for several hours and users couldn't use it normally or experienced problems accessing links, images, and videos.

Twitter down as thousands of frustrated social media users unable to use website

The outage lasted around 45 minutes before user timelines began to show as normal. Billionaire Elon Musk took over the platform in a 44 billion dollar (£33.6 billion) deal last autumn. In the year and a bit since the South African-born entrepreneur took over what is one of the most influential social media platforms globally, he’s spent the time “remoulding” the site into his image.

Doing away with the vast majority of the 8,000 employees he inherited, Musk embarked on a bizarre and public attempt to cut costs, after a legal battle led to him being forced to buy the platform. Some of his attempts to bring in new funds include forcing users to pay for the 'blue tick' which signifies a verified account.

Ryan Merrifield