Elon Musk Says X ‘May Fail’
Elon Musk said in a post on X, formally known as Twitter, that the social media may fail after a glitch caused pictures posted before December 2014 to be deleted.
“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.”
Over the weekend, a glitch on the platform caused all pictures and links on posts for pictures and videos to be removed if they were posted before December 2014.
The posts made before December 2014 showed broken links instead of the pictures and videos that were previously there.
Many users noticed the glitch almost immediately after. Technologist Tom Coates referred to the glitch as an “epic vandalism by Musk,” suggesting that it could’ve been a cost-saving exercise.
One of the biggest tweets that suffered from the glitch was the famous Oscar selfie from 2014 posted by Ellen DeGeneres. The picture became the platform’s most retweeted photo, with more than 2 million shares on the social network.
Some X users are speculating that the glitch was caused by an effort to save money on storage data, while others have said the 2016 changes where “enhanced URL enrichment” was implemented, could’ve attributed, as the change was meant to show previews for linked websites and attachments beyond the company’s previous 140 character limit, according to The Verge.
This particular malfunction also came after reports last week that suggested access from X to other social networks had been slowed down. The 5-second delay that users reported also appeared on links to news sites.
Earlier this year, X users also experienced a daily limit on the amount of tweets they could see in a day while direct messages temporarily stopped working. The company has since apologized for this “glitch” and others that left users locked out of their accounts.
Since Musk took over the platform, thousands of jobs have been cut, massively reducing the workforce since November.
Musk’s initial plans for the platform were to cut down on costs, however, he reported a 50% drop in advertising revenue last month, as well as heavy debt.
Currently, X faces annual interest payments of $1.5 billion due to the debt it took on when Musk acquired the platform for $44 billion.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
