Twitter Experiences Global Outage, Is Social Media Breaking Down?
Twitter was unusable for users worldwide, now it's limiting views per day, but its competitors are also going through massive problems.
On Saturday, Twitter experienced a global outage, leaving social media users unable to view new tweets. According to mint, users were repeatedly receiving an error reading “cannot retrieve tweets.” Such an outage is, sadly, not a new thing, as Twitter has had two previous major glitches this year.
According to Down Detector, there have been some 4,000 complaints about the social media app’s functionality. This follows another outage in March that caused links to not work and saw other systems affected, plus a February glitch that affected basic functions such as direct messages, tweeting, and following. Twitter was not been forthcoming on the reason for the most recent issues users have experienced until hours after the fact.
The owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, eventually tweeted that all users now had a limit on the number of tweets that could be viewed daily. From 300 posts for new accounts to 6,000 for verified accounts, there was no timetable on how long the new changes will be in effect.
This comes as another social media giant, Meta, faces backlash in the UK for its failure to block fraud on its platforms, which include Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Tech Times reports that the company is feeling the heat from UK banks, consumer advocates, and Members of Parliament. They cite a study by The Guardian that projects losses of up to £250 million ($320 million) for UK families, just in 2023.
Meta’s social media platforms have been rife with fraud, including the “Hi Mum” WhatsApp scam, where fraudsters pose as friends and relatives to bilk victims for money. There have also been investment scams on Facebook, with one user reporting a loss of her life savings, plus finding herself in £70,000 (nearly $89,000) of debt. Meanwhile, fake online shops on Facebook and Instagram continue to cheat users out of smaller sums daily.
Unfortunately, fraud victims on Meta platforms who have reported incidents to the social media company have frequently received either no response or only automated replies. And the problems continue, with UK banks like TSB seeing daily losses. This has prompted parliament to begin discussing online safety legislation aimed at removing false advertisements and streamlining scam reporting, though still not compelling reimbursement from IT companies for victims of fraud.
The social media company has taken steps to curb fraud, such as requiring approval for financial services ads, joining Stop Frauds UK, which aims to assist victims and track down fraudsters, and launching a “Stop. Think. Call.” campaign. Of course, fraud doesn’t just happen in the UK; social media companies are facing pressure to do more to protect users. Between technical issues like the Twitter outage and disinformation campaigns, these platforms seem to face problems at every turn.
For its part, Twitter has announced a “temporary emergency measure” that will require individuals to be registered users before they can view tweets. As of today, tweets appearing in search results on Google or embedded in other sites are still visible, but unregistered users will now be prompted to join or sign in before viewing tweets on the app itself. Still, Twitter users remain concerned about the stability, reliability, and safety of the social media site.
As these services become hotbeds of fraud, outages, and societal malaise, more and more people are tweeting less and getting their faces off Facebook. As AI bots, privacy concerns, and other menaces rise, we remain curious and cautious about the future of social media.
