Is this a normal occurrence? I only popped up for a quick check and one of my games had 17 views, and 93 downloads.

Was itchio experiencing network issues earlier today? I really can't fathom why or how else there'd be more downloads, along with the massive gap.

I'm not sure what to make of this. Has anyone else experienced this today?

I experienced it several times with some of my games. This problem is not only caused by users who have network problems, it can even come from bots that are dedicated to inflating the numbers by repeatedly clicking the download button.

Or even they also come from the itch app, which precisely doesn't count the visits.

Maybe somebody shared the download link in another thread, or even another website?

Pretty sure that a direct download (such as an automatic update, through the itch client), or going straight to the download page via an email/etc, do not count as views. This way it's easily possible to have your downloads be higher than your views, especially when you release an update to your projects. This is especially the case with bundles / sales, as purchasing there links directly to the download page.