The Twitter social network is back up and running again after what seemed to be a major outage. The main feed for many users was not loading for more than an hour.

Users reported that the main feed either spinned out or seemed to be caught in a start-up loop. Some users received a "Welcome to Twitter" message, even if they've been with the service for many years.

The Down Detector website also showed a massive spike in complaints, suggesting it was a widespread issue.

Screenshot 2023-03-01 at 10.24.58
Down Detector

It's not yet known why Twitter went down on desktop browsers. The same was true on mobile, with the Twitter app not refreshing the feed.

The issue seemed to have started at 9.50am GMT on Wednesday 1 March 2023 - in the UK, at least. Other sections of the social network continued to work, including the trending subjects on the right-hand side. Messages and profiles were accessible too.

It was even possible to post new tweets, but you could only view them by clicking on a hashtag or subject in the trending bar, or through search - many posted about the outage, for example. Viewing the main Twitter feed was a no-go though until around 11.10am GMT.

Twitter has been in a flux recently - pretty much ever since Elon Musk bought the company. Even loyal employees have recently left the firm and its moderation practices have been heavily criticised since his tenure started, with many banned users being allowed back onto the platform.

However, whether this had anything to do with the current outage is yet to be unveiled. Twitter itself hasn't yet acknowledged the problem.

A fair few Twitter alternatives have started to gain traction in the last year, including Mastodon. Twitter co-founder and former CEO, Jack Dorsey, has also been working on a new social network, Bluesky, which is currently operating in beta for invitees only. It will release to the general public soon, hopefully.