Thousands of users report Twitter outage as app breaks down

Twitter users were unable to access the social-media platform for about an hour on Thursday afternoon.

Those trying to access the platform on mobile devices and desktop were met with blank feeds, logged out and told to "try again later".

Outage monitor Downdetector began receiving user reports of problems with the app and website at 12:45 BST. By 13:12, it had received almost 30,000.

By 13:45, the technical issues appeared to have been resolved.

At 14:10, Twitter Support tweeted: "Some of you are having issues accessing Twitter - and we're working to get it back up and running for everyone. Thanks for sticking with us."

Internet-disruption tracker NetBlocks later tweeted to say Twitter was "experiencing major international outages".

It was one of Twitter's the longest outages since breaking down for more than two hours in 2016.

Users trying to tweet or reload their feeds were told "tweets aren't loading right now", with many complaining on Instagram, Facebook and Reddit.

It follows Twitter's announcement it would be suing Tesla chief executive Elon Musk for pulling out of his planned purchase.

A legal battle over Twitter's bot numbers and terms of the $44bn deal now looms between the platform's lawyers and Mr Musk.