A Weird Twitter Bug Is Screwing Up The Internet

Flickr / BeauGilesThere's a weird bug making its away around the Internet that automatically downloads a torrent file of Twitter's "Tweet" button when visiting certain websites. You may have seen it on sites like TechCrunch and Business Insider.

Beginning last night, a lot of users complained that websites with the "Tweet" button installed were asking them to download a torrent file, TorrentFreak reports. BitTorrent seems to be associated with the bug.

"Instead of loading the iframed HTML for the familiar blue 'Tweet' button, website visitors were offered a .torrent file, variously titled 'widgets_tweet_button.html.torrent' or 'widgets-tweet_button.html.torrent'," TorrentFreak writes of the issue, concluding it was likely Twitter's error. "So what was the payload inside the mysterious torrent file? The HTML for Twitter's button distributed using BitTorrent trackers hosted by Amazon, no less."

A temporary workaround for publishers seems to be removing all the Twitter share buttons from your site.

We've reached out to Twitter for comment.

Developing