Updated August 22nd, 2023, 11:24am ET: Images are restored as X fixed the bug.
The original story continues below.
Images, videos and URLs on X (formerly Twitter) are not appearing in tweets made before 2014. It’s widely speculated that this is a glitch, though some argue it could be intentional.
The problem was noted by several X users looking for old content. The tweet by Tom Coates, a product and design professional, went viral, but Coates says he was alerted to the issue by Firas Durri.
This issue has gone viral—makes sense, I wasn’t considering this outside of a personal lens, but mass-deleting old tweets would be one of the greatest cultural losses in human history. So much documented here since 2006—disasters, wars, pop culture, political movements, etymology
— Firas Durri (@firasd) August 20, 2023
The glitch causes images, videos and URLs from old tweets to be unviewable by users. The most retweeted tweet in the site’s history, posted by Ellen DeGeneres of herself and other stars at the Oscars, was impacted.
However, users noted that, while they couldn’t see the photo from their browser, it’s still available on Twitter’s servers. Eventually, the photo was restored. It’s unknown at this time if this was manually done by Twitter.
If only Bradley's arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap
— Ellen DeGeneres (@EllenDeGeneres) March 3, 2014
A photo tweeted by Barack Obama in 2012, on the other hand, seems not to have been affected by the glitch. It’s possible it was preserved purposefully due to its popularity and Obama’s status as a former president. However, other, more innocuous photos have also mysteriously been passed over, like Coates’ photo of a “successful pork pie.”
X (Twitter) users have experienced a myriad of glitches and slow-downs since Musk’s takeover, so many have been quick to assume this problem is just another bug. Others have accused Musk of purposefully removing this content as a cost-saving measure.
“Epic vandalism by Musk,” Coates tweeted. “Another cost-saving exercise presumably — and one which 100% should make you trust his statements Twitter is just about to make money.”
Another possibility is that the change is related to Twitter’s 2016 “enhanced URL enrichment” since, as pointed out by The Verge, the metadata for it began to appear in 2014.
Some individuals and articles have noted the irony that, just a day before the glitch was discovered, Elon Musk tweeted, “[X (Twitter)] may fail.”
The sad truth is that there are no great “social networks” right now.
We may fail, as so many have predicted, but we will try our best to make there be at least one.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 19, 2023
Neither Elon Musk nor X’s new CEO Linda Yaccarino has commented on the issue at the time of publication of this story.
Via: The Verge
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