Twitter denied on Thursday rumors that the social media messaging service will be shutting down in 2017, denouncing the claim as groundless. "There is absolutely no truth to the claims whatsoever," a spokesman for Twitter said in an emailed response to a Reuters request for comment.

Social media started buzzing with the hashtag #SaveTwitter early on Thursday, with more than 100,000 tweets mentioning the hashtag by early afternoon.

Twitter has been criticized for not doing enough to police abusive behavior on the messaging service, and has struggled to find the right balance between free expression and blocking violent or hateful speech.