For over a day, numerous users, including this journalist, have reported significant functionality issues on X, formerly known as Twitter. Problems include messages failing to load, timelines not refreshing, and posts requiring multiple webpage refreshes for visibility.
The issues began on Thursday afternoon, noted by Downdetector, which compiles user-reported disruptions. Starting at around 2:12 PM Eastern Time, a surge of complaints emerged, detailing issues from being unable to sign in to direct messages vanishing.
X’s Engineering account acknowledged the service disruptions, attributing them to a data centre outage. According to their statement, a team is actively addressing the situation. Reports indicate that a fire occurred at a data centre leased by X near Portland, Oregon, although it remains unclear if this event directly relates to the current outages.
This incident marks the latest in a series of disruptions X has experienced. The last major outage happened in March when users were suddenly logged out and faced difficulties in accessing their feeds and messaging functionalities. Elon Musk, the owner, speculated without evidence that this was due to a cyberattack. Previous outages also impacted users in December 2022 and July 2023, with a more minor glitch in May causing timelines to freeze temporarily.
Under Musk’s leadership since acquiring X for $44 billion in 2022, the company has drastically reduced its workforce from 7,500 to approximately 1,300 employees, leaving just 550 engineers as of January 2023. Further layoffs in November 2024 primarily targeted the engineering department, raising concerns about the platform’s stability and maintenance.
In addition to workforce reductions, the company has faced criticism for security mismanagement, which may have compromised its systems to attacks like denial of service. The recent issues highlight ongoing vulnerabilities within X’s architecture as it continues to grapple with the implications of these significant staffing changes and operational challenges.
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