The era of Elon Musk's Twitter -- a strange sentence to utter aloud, much less type -- has certainly been full of surprises.
From selling usernames to suspending journalists and even trying to get people to pay $7.99 for Twitter Blue (a move he rescinded not long after), Musk's takeover has transformed the social media website into the digital version of the Wild West.
Now those who haven't fled Twitter screaming yet are dealing with a new problem that has to do with the use of third-party clients.
Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty
What's Happening at Twitter Now?
On the evening of Jan. 12, around 11 PM EST, people on social media began reporting that third-party apps such as Tweetbot, Echofon, Owly, and Twitterrific weren't working properly.
People that were able to post to Twitter using the web or phone apps shared their error messages, speculating that it could be an error ... or just another incidence of Musk's quick-fire changes.
Musk, a software developer duo, identified that the Twitter API was the reason for the breakdown, as it is now refusing to authenticate apps.
As of 10:45 am EST, Twitter has offered no explanation for the breakdown. However, the API problem isn't happening for all third-party products, but only replacements for the actual Twitter app, according to 9 to 5 Google.
One Japanese Twitter user made a spreadsheet of all the third-party services that were down, a total of 23.
Neither Twitter or Musk have made any formal announcements about the situation. However, both Tweetbot and Twitterrific acknowledged the issue on their own Twitter accounts, with both saying they were working on getting in touch with Twitter and finding out the root of the problem.
Twitter Users Are Not Happy
As more people start to find out the news, they are speculating that the API breakdown was an intentional one.
Many other users have declared that they will leave Twitter if the issue is a permanent one, with many saying the official Twitter client is lacking.
One blogger by the name of Psyvariar mentions that they saw this move coming several months ago.
Twitter has not responded to TheStreet's inquiry at the time of publishing.
