For several hours on Thursday evening, not much is going on on Twitter. In the meantime, the problem seems to have been resolved for many users. The network rules out a hack, the malfunction has internal causes.
The use of Twitter worldwide was at times severely hindered by technical problems on Friday night. After about two hours, during which many users could no longer publish messages on the platform, the breakdown was then remedied – at least largely – according to the US company.
Twitter said there was no evidence that the breakdown was caused by a hacker attack. "Everything seems to be back to normal," said Twitter at around 2:00 am CEST. The situation will continue to be monitored. The Internet company had previously reported "problems in its internal systems". Users who tried to post a tweet received the error message: "Something went wrong, but don't be upset – let's try again."
According to the website downdetector.com, which specializes in Internet outages, Twitter users from all continents reported problems. However, the difficulties were concentrated on the east and west coasts of the United States and Japan. The platform for short messages is used by hundreds of millions of users around the globe, including politicians, stars of the entertainment industry, authorities and companies.
Twitter intervenes in the election campaign
The technical glitch came at a particularly inopportune time for Twitter. The Californian company is currently at the center of a controversy in the US presidential campaign. Like Facebook, Twitter has blocked access to a newspaper article with alleged revelations about opposition candidate Joe Biden and his son, drawing the anger of President Donald Trump. Twitter justified its approach with questions about the "origin of the materials" for the article. Trump's Republicans announced on Thursday that they would invite Twitter boss Jack Dorsey to appear before the Senate. They accused the company of "censorship".
The article in the conservative tabloid New York Post reports alleged involvement of former Vice President Biden in his son Hunter's Ukraine affairs – the Trump challenger denies being involved in Hunter Biden's activities. The "New York Post" claims to have gained access to data from a laptop once used by the Biden son. The newspaper claims to have found e-mails that are supposed to show that Hunter Biden had used his father's position for his business in 2015, who at the time was Vice President for Ukraine policy in the USA.
Twitter plays an important role as a communication platform in the US election campaign. Trump has always used the service very intensively to get his messages across. Biden also sends tweets, albeit much more cautiously than the president. Twitter has repeatedly experienced major technical breakdowns – last February and autumn and summer 2019. At least 130 Twitter accounts were hacked last July. These included accounts from prominent users such as US President Barack Obama, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. In September 2019, CEO Dorsey's Twitter account was also briefly hacked.
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