X, formerly known as Twitter, experienced a global outage that lasted for over an hour. The issue affected users globally, with timelines failing to refresh on mobile apps, and a placeholder message appearing on the web. The message read, “Welcome to X! This is the best place to see what’s happening in your world.” The outage was highlighted by Netblocks, which reported a “significant international outage” without any country-level blocks or filtering.
At approximately 1:35 AM ET, access to timelines was restored, but the cause of the problem remains unknown. During the outage, posting to the site still worked, but posts disappeared after a refresh. Accounts followed with notifications turned on continued to appear in the feed, along with push notifications for new posts. Notably, a Space hosted by New York Times reporter Ryan Mac had over 800 participants discussing the outage despite the inability to see new posts.
The blanked-out timelines affected accounts like Elon Musk, Support, and X CEO Linda Yaccarino, preventing the display of useful information. The API Status page for the service also didn’t update to indicate any issues. Reports of problems on DownDetector started just before 12:30 AM ET, and there’s no indication of the cause or the expected duration of the outage. This incident follows another issue last week that broke outgoing links for a couple of hours.
Timeline of Recent Events with X/Twitter
The past year at X/Twitter has been a whirlwind. Elon Musk’s takeover triggered drastic changes: layoffs, subscription tiers, controversial account revivals, and algorithm tweaks. Advertisers fled, EU scrutiny rose, and user engagement plummeted. Musk stepped down, and Dorsey tried to steady the ship, but losses mounted and advertisers continued to jump ship. Now, with Musk back at the helm, X faces increased global scrutiny and a CEO juggling multiple platforms. Its future remains uncertain, as tumultuous as the year it’s had.
On Monday, December 21, 2023, X/Twitter experienced a major outage that lasted for several hours. Users who tried to access their timelines were greeted with an error message that read “Welcome to your timeline. This is where you’ll see messages from people you follow”. The error message was a placeholder text that was accidentally displayed due to a bug in the new feature.
Impact of Outage On Users and Business
The outage caused a huge loss of revenue for X, as users were unable to use the platform and earn X tokens. According to some estimates, X lost about $10 million in revenue during the outage. The outage also affected the price of X tokens, which dropped by 15% in the crypto market.
The outage also caused a lot of frustration and backlash from users, who vented their anger and disappointment on other social media platforms. Some users accused Musk of ruining X/Twitter with his new feature and demanded that he fix the bug or roll back the feature. Some users also threatened to leave X/Twitter and switch to other platforms.
The outage also raised questions about the future of X/Twitter, and its ability to compete with other social media platforms. Some analysts suggested that X/Twitter might lose its user base and market share, as users might lose trust and interest in the platform. Some analysts also speculated that X/Twitter might face more regulatory scrutiny and legal challenges, as the outage exposed the vulnerabilities and risks of the platform.
