‘This platform is so brittle’: Elon Musk’s Twitter failed to load links and photos days after new round of layoffs

If links and photos weren’t loading or working properly on your Twitter feed early Monday afternoon, you weren’t alone.

When users attempted to click a link when the platform was down, they were met with an error message that said “Your current API plan does not include access to this endpoint.”

Photos uploaded on the platform were also not loading, and some users reported problems with TweetDeck.

“Some parts of Twitter may not be working as expected right now,” Twitter Support tweeted Monday. “We made an internal change that had some unintended consequences. We’re working on this now and will share an update when it’s fixed.”

Downdetector showed a spike in Twitter users reporting outages around noon Monday.

By 1 p.m., the problems appeared to be resolved, with Twitter Support tweeting the platform “should now be working as normal.”

“This platform is so brittle (sigh),” Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted Monday afternoon about the platform’s outage.

The latest problems on Twitter come just one week after more employees were laid off.

Twitter laid off engineering and product employees days ago

In 2022, Elon Musk eliminated more than 3,700 jobs at Twitter, or half of the company’s workforce, in a bid to drive down costs following his $44 billion acquisition. Among those affected were its content moderation and curation teams.

Twitter laid off more workers in late February, affecting teams including engineering and product, sources told Bloomberg at the time. It’s unclear exactly how many employees were impacted, but sources believed it was dozens.

Among those cut was Esther Crawford, one of the executives who had been in charge of Twitter Blue, the site’s subscription service. In the days after Musk’s takeover of Twitter last year, she notably tweeted in a post that went viral that employees sometimes will have to #SleepWhereYouWork in order to meet deadlines.

Several startup founders who joined Twitter via acquisitions the past few years tweeted that they’d also been cut, including a founder of the newsletter startup Revue and the design firm Ueno.

More changes are coming to Twitter in March, including for two-factor authentication

As of March 20, Twitter users who are not subscribed to Twitter Blue, the platform’s monthly subscription service, will no longer be able to use two-factor authentication using text messages, the platform said in February.

“At that time, if you have text message 2FA still enabled, you will be prompted to disable it before you can continue to use your account,” Twitter wrote.

Two-factor authentication gives users an extra layer of security for their accounts by asking them to enter a code or security key when they log in with their passwords. “This additional step helps make sure that you, and only you, can access your account,” Twitter wrote on its Help Center page about the tool.

Users who aren’t subscribed to Twitter Blue can still use two-factor authentication with an authentication app or security key. “These methods require you to have physical possession of the authentication method and are a great way to ensure your account is secure,” Twitter said in a release.

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