Taiwo Afolayan
Thousands of Twitter users reported issues with the platform on Wednesday, as the Elon Musk-owned social network began allowing paying users to post tweets of up to 4,000 characters.
“Twitter may not be functioning properly for some of you,” the company stated in a tweet.
“I apologize for the inconvenience. We are aware of the situation and are working to resolve it.”
Early afternoon in Silicon Valley, reports of Twitter problems spiked at the website Downdetector and lasted about two hours.
Users reported being unable to post messages, being told they had exceeded a daily limit of tweets, and being unable to send direct messages.
According to US media, Twitter has implemented a daily limit of 2,400 tweets per day to reduce strain on its operations.
TweetDeck, a popular dashboard for managing and viewing Twitter accounts, was also reported to be down.
The outages occurred on the same day that Twitter added a length perk to its Blue subscription service, which costs $8 per month in the United States.
Twitter Blue subscribers can now send tweets with up to 4,000 characters, far exceeding the 280-character limit imposed on non-paying users, according to the tech company.
“But don’t worry, Twitter will still be Twitter,” the tech company said in a lengthy tweet announcing the benefit.
“Because longer Tweets may require more scrolling, they’ll be limited to 280 characters on your timeline, with a ‘Show more’ prompt to click and read the entire Tweet.”
Musk reduced Twitter’s workforce late last year after becoming the company’s owner, raising concerns about having enough engineering talent on hand to keep the platform running smoothly.
Musk reportedly told Twitter employees on Wednesday to put aside work on new features in order to focus on troubleshooting.
AFP
