People Are Getting a Bunch of Cryptic Twitter Notifications and They Don't Know What to Do With Themselves
On Tuesday, people received some strange-looking push notifications from Twitter on their phones at around 12:30 p.m.
It appears a significant number of users got a few notifications in a row that all contained a mysterious combination of letters and numbers, followed by a colon and one or more digits.
Devoid of any context, Twitter users were quick to question what it all meant.
Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey has already tweeted that the company is on it, promising in a tweet Tuesday that “We’re seeing this issue too. On it.”
We’re seeing this issue too. On it. pic.twitter.com/pzjd6248gJ
— jack (@jack) October 16, 2018
So exactly what is this apparent glitch about?
Is “2e1f6171d05a409e9531a2b139d69928: 14” an error, or a much more valuable clue? It’s still unclear, but before long, the Twittersphere was full of questions.
Looks like @Twitter is having a freak out moment after the last update. ???? Anyone else having this problem? pic.twitter.com/3nUU2tGq2g
— Jack Phan (@JackPhan) October 16, 2018
Anyone else get a weird Twitter notification just now? pic.twitter.com/WQZAt3r9Ua
— Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) October 16, 2018
twitter notifications: a4be60df51jse0
me: pic.twitter.com/LAoL3HkNjE— ???????????????????????? ????????????????????? (@_trvly) October 16, 2018
Am I the only person who didn't get a notification from twitter with all those numbers
— Lovesmusic96 ???? (@Lovesmusic96) October 16, 2018
The only notifications i gets thanks @Twitter pic.twitter.com/Za8IQasCMm
— BigFudge???? (@Official_Jude_) October 16, 2018
Anyone know what these random Twitter notifications are? pic.twitter.com/DnS0O1Kyys
— Jeremy Herb (@jeremyherb) October 16, 2018
What’s going on with all of these Twitter notifications? @Twitter pic.twitter.com/k3ORtz8pyR
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) October 16, 2018
@Twitter what's the deal with these iOS notifications containing some sort of hashed data? @TwitterSupport @TwitterData pic.twitter.com/HA7t0bXGnb
— Andy Sternberg (@andysternberg) October 16, 2018
conspiracy theory: twitter is getting hacked by a higher force pic.twitter.com/05hJckZv6q
— L&H News (@StylinsonDaily) October 16, 2018
Dorsey later explained that this was a code error, that the company fixed.
You know those red bubbles that appear when you get notifications? Usually, you wouldn’t see this in numbers and code, but that’s how we talk to your phone so you get those notifications. It's fixed, we're good. https://t.co/JA71hewEvS
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) October 16, 2018