Twitter sets off jitters as site goes down

The widely popular Twitterwebsite went offline for many users Thursday, prompting a flurry of complaints on rival sites. 

"Users may be experiencing issues accessing Twitter," a company statement said. "Our engineers are currently working to resolve the issue." 

That did not stop some panicked users from launching complaints. 

"Twitters broke, my life has no meaning anymore," one user wrote on the social media website Tumblr. 

Another wrote, "twitter is down and my life is over." 

Twitter, which allows its members to post brief comments, links or pictures, claims to have more than 140 million active users, with the largest number being in the United States. 

A recent survey found one in seven Americans who go online use Twitter and eight per cent do so every day.