Social media platform X, previously known as Twitter, faced a widespread outage globally on Thursday, leaving users unable to view tweets for over an hour. The outage, whose cause remains unidentified, impacted not only X but also its professional interface, X Pro, formerly recognized as TweetDeck. Despite users having access to Spaces and notifications, tweets disappeared from timelines and profiles during the outage, prompting frustration among the user base.
The global outage, lasting for more than an hour, caught users off guard as they encountered difficulties accessing tweets. The issue affected both X and X Pro, creating a blackout in the usual flow of information across the platform. DownDetector, a web monitoring tool, registered over 65,000 reports starting around 9:10 pm Pacific Time.
As users grappled with the sudden disruption, the cause of the outage remained shrouded in mystery. X users found themselves in a peculiar situation where they could participate in Spaces and receive notifications but were unable to view tweets. The lack of transparency regarding the cause of the outage left the user community in a state of uncertainty.
While this outage marks a notable disruption for X, it’s not the first time the platform has faced such challenges. The recent workforce cuts had exposed the platform to vulnerabilities and reliability issues, although it had showcased improved reliability in recent months. The previous major outage, back in early July, led users to encounter “rate limit exceeded” and “cannot retrieve tweets” errors. Elon Musk later clarified that these errors were intentionally triggered to curb extensive data scraping from the platform.
The outage prompted complaints from users who voiced their concerns about the sudden disappearance of tweets from timelines and profiles. Many took to other social media platforms to express their frustration, highlighting the integral role social media plays in communication and staying informed.
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