Twitter Fleets Could Be Accessed Long Beyond 24 Hours Due To Glitch

A glitch with Twitter Inc.’s TWTR platform allowed “Fleets” posted by users to be accessible long beyond the intended 24-hour expiry period, TechCrunch reports.

What Happened: An app that interacted with Twitter’s back-end systems via developer API returned a list of Fleets from the social media company’s server with each of them accessible via a direct link. This glitch was first detailed by Twitter user @donk_enby in a thread.

The direct link gave access to view or download an affected user’s post long after 24 hours and didn’t even trigger a “read” notification — meaning the original poster wouldn’t even get to know that their post was read by the person accessing the Fleet through the direct link.

Twitter acknowledged the technical issue in a statement to TechCrunch. 

“We’re aware of a bug accessible through a technical workaround where some Fleets media URLs may be accessible after 24 hours,” a representative of the Jack Dorsey-led company said. “We are working on a fix that should be rolled out shortly.”

Why It Matters: Twitter launched  the feature last week in what was seen as a bid to take on Snap Inc.’s SNAP Snapchat and Facebook Inc. FB and Instagram stories. 

The Fleets rollout was subsequently delayed as Twitter reported facing “performance and stability problems.” The social media company ultimately resolved the glitches and made the service available worldwide by Friday.

Days into the rollout, the latest glitch adds further woes for Dorsey’s company.

Price Action: Twitter shares closed 2.4% higher at $44.68 on Friday.