Twitter experienced a global outage late Wednesday, according to numerous reports from Twitter users and online tracker Downdetector.
Twitter is experiencing a widespread global outage
According to Downdetector, reports of outages began in the UK, followed by Canada, Germany, Italy and France. The majority of people affected by the outage were using his website on Twitter rather than the app, according to trackers.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Hours after the issue began, reports of outages dropped significantly, according to the tracker, indicating that the worst had passed.
A massive global outage is the result observers and analysts have feared since billionaire Elon Musk took over the company. In his October just before the acquisition, The Washington Post reported on his Musk’s internal plans to cut costs.
Since the acquisition, Musk has laid off thousands of staffers, including engineers, and many others have quit, leaving Twitter with a manpower.
Twitter operates three major data centers around the world. Musk has ordered Sacramento’s largest data center to close for Christmas, causing distress among enthusiasts, according to people familiar with the order, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.
In a group chat Wednesday between current and former engineers, some speculated that a software update that went wrong caused the outage, the person said.
On Wednesday night, Musk tweeted that the service is working well.