Australian Twitter users criticise Elon Musk over site outage

Twitter users are experiencing ongoing delays and outages across Australia and New Zealand.

The icon for the Twitter app on an iPhone

Twitter outages have been reported in Australia. Source: AAP

Key points
  • Twitter is not working or running extremely slowly in Australia.
  • A website that tracks service outages said the prolonged interruption began around 6.30am AEST on Wednesday.
  • Approximately 5.8 million Australians have active Twitter accounts.
Twitter users in Australia and New Zealand are expressing frustration with over delays and outages on the social media site.

On Wednesday, Twitter appeared to be down or extremely slow with users posting on other social media platforms to express their dissatisfaction with the disruption.

Downdetector, a website that tracks service outages through a range of sources including user reports, said the prolonged interruption began around 6.30am AEST.

The outage is the second in as many weeks.
"Twitter website slow as and wont load. $13AUD month and Elon can't even keep a website up," one user wrote referring to eccentric Twitter billionaire owner Elon Musk's subscription plans for verified accounts.

Another user Prodos Marinakis tried a workaround solution changing his VPN location to no avail.

"I'm in Australia & on a laptop. Just tried using USA VPN. Unfortunately, no luck with that."

There are approximately 5.8 million active monthly Twitter users in Australia.
The outage comes two months after Mr Musk's $US44 billion ($A65 billion) takeover of Twitter, which has been

Upon securing Twitter, Mr Musk dissolved the entire board of executives and sacked entire teams, before reportedly emailing staff and ordering them to "work long hours at high intensity" or take a severance package.

He has also monetised Twitter verification, installed beds in Twitter's headquarters and reinstated previously banned controversial personalities including Donald Trump, Jordan Peterson, Katie Hopkins and Andrew Tate.

Hundreds of Twitter employees quit the social media giant in November including engineers responsible for fixing bugs and preventing service outages.

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2 min read
Published 4 January 2023 3:52pm
Source: AAP, SBS

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