Twitter Users Outraged as Links, Images Stop Working — And Elon Tweets ‘This Platform Is So Brittle’

AP Picture/Jeff Chiu

Twitter had a peculiar and frustrating technical glitch Monday, as users experienced problems getting access to links to websites and viewing photography. In the meantime, the self-described “Chief Twit” who fired the vast majority of his staff after shopping for the company closing yr complained in a tweet that the platform was “so brittle.”

It’s not totally clear what precisely fell aside with Twitter’s behind-the-scenes technological infrastructure — your friendly local Mediaite contributing editor is wondering if the complete social media platform is powered by means of a geriatric hamster trying to run on a rusty wheel — but for a couple of hours Monday, several Twitter functions were nonfunctional in any respect.

Any time a Twitter consumer attempted to click on a hyperlink, they have been sent to a white screen, blank except for some text that listed an error message that “Your current API plan does not embody get admission to to this endpoint,” and a hyperlink to a web page on the Twitter developer web site. (Beneath is a screenshot from my iPhone previous lately when I attempted to click on a Mediaite hyperlink in one in every of our tweets.)

Screenshot via Twitter.

In January, Twitter all of sudden bring to a halt get admission to to its application programming interface (API) for a lot of in style third-birthday party apps like Tweetbot and Twitterific, and then officially announced in February that it will start charging builders a month-to-month charge to access the API.

On the time, Twitter proprietor Elon Musk claimed that the “free API is being abused presently by means of bot scammers & opinion manipulators,” but many Twitter users lamented the lack of apps they had used for years and wondered how widespread the “bot” problem — a criticism Musk had unsuccessfully raised returned when he was once attempting to weasel out of his contract to purchase Twitter — in reality was.

Musk replied to 1 single person’s tweet concerning the tech issues (a person whose bio brags he was once banned from Twitter in 2020 ahead of being “Freed by way of Elon Musk 2022”) with the aid of complaining again about his own company, the very company the place he individually made the choice to fire huge swaths of his staff, the very employees who possessed years-lengthy experience and targeted data of the coding and techniques that keep the social media platform functioning for thousands and thousands of users 24 hours a day.

“This platform is so brittle (sigh),” tweeted Musk, promising it “[w]in poor health be fastened rapidly.”

A few minutes before Musk’s tweet, the @TwitterSupport account had stated an issue was happening. “Some components of Twitter might not be working as expected at this time,” the account wrote. “We made an inside change that had some unintended penalties. We’re engaged on this now and will share an update when it’s fastened.”

As historically occurs, Twitter customers complained on Twitter in regards to the Twitter issues, sending phrases like “Twitter API,” “Twitter HQ,” and “#TwitterDown” trending at various points within the early afternoon.

The lack of performance of photography also resulted in a resurgence of ASCII artwork. For you whippersnappers amongst our readers who are too young to remember that the early days of the web, that’s the use of computer text characters to form pictures
house
▔▏┗┛▕▔ we toughen _
┻┳DataIssues will have to now be working as normal. Thanks for sticking with us!” the @TwitterSupport tweeted almost an hour after their initial message about the issue, a chipper message that used to be met with sharp skepticism.

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