Hillary Clinton endorsed a new social network for her voters. It was promptly crashed by cyberattack.

Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Twitter Sunday evening invited her followers to join a new social network called Verrit, which bills itself as a "sanctuary in a chaotic media environment" for the 65.8 million voters who backed Clinton in 2016 and are "marginalized and harassed" as a result.

Shortly after Clinton's tweet went live, Verrit stopped working. The problem was not server overload from a surge of Clinton-sent traffic but rather a "pretty significant and sophisticated" cyberattack, said Verrit creator Peter Daou in comments to Recode. Daou did not know who was responsible for the attack at the time of the interview.

If Verrit is successful, Daou added, it will help Clinton voters escape "bullying" and "feel like they're not facing attacks and smears and harassment and false narratives and negative talking points." The site's core functionality seems to be shareable quotes and factoids packaged with a verification code to demonstrate authenticity, a system that is apparently easily gamed. So far, reviews have been less than stellar.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up