There's a few of us in chat who can't access private chats today, I'm having problems and there's a couple of others who mentioned in chat that they're having problems with private chat as well.
For me, it will alert me that there's a message there but when I click to get onto that tab it just white screens itself. And when it does let me see what people are saying, it then eats what I type in response. Weirdly, it's only private chats it does it with, main chat it seems to be behaving.
Just thought I'd mention it in case there's a tech problem or something (also known as whispershadow broke it)