'Twitter Experiences Widespread Outage as Rate Limit is Exceeded, Affecting Thousands of Users Globally'

Twitter experiences widespread outages, leaving users unable to access site.

On Saturday, Twitter users in several countries encountered difficulties accessing the social media platform. The hashtags "Rate Limit Exceeded" and "#TwitterDown" quickly became the top trending topics in the US. By noon that day, there were over 40,000 tweets related to the former hashtag.

Reports of outages started surfacing around 5 a.m. PST, as reported by DownDetector, and the number of reports increased throughout the morning. By 9 a.m. EST, DownDetector had recorded over 7,400 outage reports from users across the website.

Users, including CNN journalists, noticed that their Twitter feeds were not loading and received error messages stating, "Sorry, you are rate limited. Please wait a few moments then try again." Other users reported errors indicating that the site was unable to retrieve tweets.

The frustration among users was palpable, with other trending topics in the US including "Wtf twitter" and "Thanks Elon." However, it's important to note that Elon Musk cannot be held responsible for this particular issue.

The Twitter blog has acknowledged that rate-limited messages have been intermittently sent to some users for years, dating back to 2008. However, the current limit is set at 2,400 tweets, which users were not exceeding.

The majority of the reported problems on Saturday were related to the website, accounting for 44% of the issues, while 39% were reported on the app.

There were some claims that blue-check users, who have paid for additional verification, were unaffected by the outages, but these claims could not be confirmed.

CNN reached out to Twitter for comment, but the platform responded with an automated poop emoji, indicating a lack of response.

This is not the first time Twitter users have faced service disruptions. In March, there was a significant outage, with over 8,000 users reporting disruptions. This outage was one of the largest since Elon Musk took over the platform.

Musk is actively working to improve the platform, which has experienced an exodus of advertisers. He has brought in a new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, and is introducing a blue verification checkmark for users who subscribe to Twitter Blue, aiming to generate revenue through subscriptions.

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