The X Platform, formerly Twitter, is experiencing trouble showing old posts with images or links converted using its URL shortener. Tom Coates (@tomcoates) highlighted the issue on a Saturday, and a few days earlier, @DaniloTakagi, a Brazilian YouTuber, also noticed the same problem.
According to The Verge’s reports, this problem impacts tweets posted before December 2014. Tweets with videos remain unaffected. Even though Twitter added support for images in 2011 and built-in videos in 2016, links to platforms like YouTube are now displayed as plain text with non-functional t.co URLs.
Impact and Restoration of Content
A glitch caused a famous historical tweet to lose its image. This selfie, taken at the 2014 Oscars with Ellen DeGeneres, Bradley Cooper, and Jennifer Lawrence, was the most retweeted ever with 2 million shares.
The issue sparked speculations of cost-cutting by X’s owner, but the original media’s presence suggests an error. X’s takeover of Twitter last year led to technical problems and layoffs.
Though some images were initially lost, the top retweeted selfie from the 2014 Oscars was restored. Another old tweet featuring Barack Obama’s victory hug with the First Lady remains functional.
The glitch’s timing seems to relate to changes made by Twitter in 2016, introducing enhanced URL enrichment to display previews for linked websites and native attachments without using up the 140-character limit. The metadata for these additions began appearing in December 2014.
This glitch follows X’s intentional slowdown of access to rival social media platforms and news organization websites. X introduced a delay of about five seconds when users clicked on links leading to other websites.
Amid ongoing changes, X’s owner, Elon Musk, is dedicated to enhancing the platform’s user experience despite obstacles. He acknowledged the absence of exceptional social networks and shared on the X Platform,
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.