Is Twitter Down? Some Users Are Experiencing Outages

Twitter was down for many users in the United States on Tuesday morning, and they were not happy [...]

By Michael Hein

Twitter was down for many users in the United States on Tuesday morning, and they were not happy about it. The social media site began issuing an error message saying it was "over capacity," and users panicked about where to vent their frustration. Ironically, the hashtag "Twitter Down" was soon trending on Twitter.

Twitter has often been the place where users complain about Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp and other social media sites when they experience issues. On Tuesday, the tables were turned when Twitter had the same problem. The common error message seemed to say that Twitter was simply experiencing more web traffic than it was currently able to handle.

According to the social media analytics site Down Detector, there was a huge spike in issues with Twitter starting shortly before 10 a.m. ET. The site gathers reports of problems from users themselves, and it showed that about 47 percent of reported issues were with the website itself when opened in a web browser. Another 33 percent of the issues were on iOS apps, while 18 percent were on Android apps.

The site features a live outage map as well, showing huge concentrations of Twitter outages around the north-eastern United States — particularly New York City. However, there were also big pockets of reports from major cities like Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., as well as Chicago and Dallas Texas. As always, this could explain more about where people are reporting issues from than where the issues are happening.

On Down Detector's site, commenters weighed in on what might be causing the outages. A few people noted that the site has been extremely active due to the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. The House of Representatives is expected to vote on impeachment this week, passing the decision on to the Senate from there.

Other commenters even joked that Trump might have over-taxed Twitter himself with his prolific use of the site recently. The president posted 123 tweets on Thursday alone, and has continued to add commentary on the impeachment hearings throughout, while his administration refuses to take part or testify.

At the same time, the world of entertainment was heating up on Twitter as well on Tuesday, with posts about the new movies coming out for the holiday season. Many reviewers saw Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker on Monday night, and fans were eagerly awaiting early reviews. There were also screenings of Cats, Bombshell and other new blockbusters.

At the time of this writing, "Twitter Down" is still a trending topic in the north-eastern United States.

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