#Twitterdown
Millions of Twitter users were unable to use the social network Tuesday, as the company suffered a major outage worldwide.
Users across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and North America reported having problems. The outages prevented many users on computers and smartphones from sharing and receiving ｕpdates and other messages.
Twitter users in northern Europe began to report issues Tuesday morning. Smartphone users there received the warning: “Tweets aren’t loading right now.” Several hours later, Twitter access became unavailable in the United States and Canada, at the start of the work day.
A statement on the company’s Twitter page said, “We are aware of the issue and are working towards a resolution.”
The on-again, off-again Twitter outages meant that the hashtag #twitterdown trended worldwide, as Twitter remained unavailable in many ｃountries.
Once users were able to access Twitter again, many posted about what they did during the Twitter outage, instead of writing tweets or checking for ｕpdates.
One user tweeted:
While #twitterdown, I spent some time with my family. They seem like good people.
— mar misses har (@louisslaysx) January 19, 2016
And that’s What’s Trending Today.
VOCABULARY:
1. outage - n. a period of time when there something (such as electricity) is not working
2. load - v. to cause (a program, file, etc.) to begin being used or displayed by a computer
3. (#) hashtag n. = (on social media sites such as Twitter) a word or phrase preceded by a hash or pound sign (#) and used to identify messages on a specific topic.
DISCUSSION:
1. If an outage in a soacial media site like Twitter makes people spend time with their family, is this a positive implication or a negative one?
2. Do you remember what it used to be like when there are no social networks? What do you prefer? Then or now?
3. How much of your life do you spend on virtual interactions? Is it too much?
