A glitch caused problems a Xknown as Twitter until its recent rebranding – you can no longer view old posts containing attached images and photos or hyperlinks. This glitch, which appears to involve tweets published before December 2014, in fact it makes part of the “history” of the social network inaccessible. And the origin of this malfunction still does not seem clear.
X (Twitter), a glitch deletes photos and links tweeted before 2014
Tom Coates and the Brazilian vtuber @DaniloTakagi have reported the problem (we have read about it through The Verge), highlighting a defect that has sparked numerous discussions and speculations. What’s behind this X glitch?which seems to have deleted tons of old photos and links?
X seems to no longer be able to Properly show old posts with attached images or hyperlinks converted via Twitter’s built-in URL shortener. This bug it doesn’t seem to affect the videos (since Twitter introduced support for native images in 2011 and embedded video in 2016). But it also prevents links to external services like YouTube to work properly. Some users have noticed that this glitch seems to affect posted tweets before December 2014, but the extent of the problem still remains uncertain.
The “most retweeted selfie ever” is saved
A peculiar example of the impact of this issue, reported by Tom Coates, concerns one of the most iconic tweets of all time: the famous selfie posted by the host of the Oscars 2014 Ellen DeGeneres, immortalized alongside celebrities such as Bradley Cooper, Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep e Jennifer Lawrence.
This image, which quickly became “the most retweeted tweet ever” with over 2 million shares, she disappeared on Saturday afternoon. The fact that it is visible again in the evening, unlike other posts, seems to suggest that there are backups of the tweets that are not visible. But that for the moment, X is only arranging the most famous.
In addition to this image, the photograph of Barack and Michelle Obama after their second presidential victory in 2012 it seems to have returned to its place. Another clue that suggests that X has manually reposted some particularly significant images.
What is going on?
Although some speculation has suggested the possibility that this bug could be the result of a strategic choice aimed at cutting costs by the owner Elon Musk, most of the evidence and reactions seem to suggest that yes it is an error or a technical bug. With the lack of official comment from Elon Musk or X CEO Linda Yaccarinothe precise origin of this problem remains shrouded in mystery.
Some developers, heard from The Verge, report that the fact that the missing tweets are prior to December 2014 is in itself a clue. There edit for “enriched URLs”, which allowed links and attachments to override the 140-character limit Twitter had at the time, began in December 2014, and became official in 2016. Perhaps a bug with this feature may have caused the problem. But X has not commented yet on the problem.
If you have important images or tweets from before 2015, it pays to check that they are still active. And eventually contact X support (Twitter).