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After several hours of persistent complaints from Twitter users, the company has posted a notice that it is aware of the problem.  According to Twitter, the errors (such as an “over capacity” message featuring the famous “Fail Whale”) are caused by unspecified changes made to the service in recent days:

downrightnow detected a continual spike in user reports around 10am ET; Twitter first acknowledged the widespread issue through its Twitter API feed at approximately 1pm.

Twitter Status History as of 3:00pm ET

We also observed numerous complaints of capacity errors yesterday (10/20/09), possibly due in part to competition over religion-related trending topics.

Stay tuned to the Twitter status page on downrightnow for the latest updates, and be sure to let us know if you receive a visit from the Fail Whale.