Everyone is freaking out over this weird Twitter notification

Yeah, it wasn't just you.
By Jack Morse  on 
Everyone is freaking out over this weird Twitter notification
Wut. Credit: mashable

Did someone press the wrong key or something?

Phones around the country blew up Tuesday morning with strange push notifications from Twitter showing a seemingly random series of letters and numbers. And yes, even CEO Jack Dorsey appeared to fall victim to the spam.

"We're seeing this issue too," he tweeted. "On it."

We reached out to Twitter in an attempt to determine just what is going on, but have yet to receive a response.

Apparently, however, the issue is "fixed" — whatever that means.

What it doesn't mean is that the people of Twitter didn't do one huge collective double take.

Meanwhile, those without push notifications enabled took a moment to revel in a feeling of smug superiority.

UPDATE: Oct. 16, 2018, 12:02 p.m. PDT: According to Twitter, what users are seeing on their smartphones is actually code.

The full statement is below:

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.

Twitter also reiterated that the issue has been fixed.

Mashable Image
Jack Morse

Professionally paranoid. Covering privacy, security, and all things cryptocurrency and blockchain from San Francisco.


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