A glitch impacted aged tweets on Twitter recently. Following an investigation, it was discovered that posts predating December 2014 which contained images and links condensed by Twitter were impacted. Twitter is now under the ownership of Elon Musk, who purchased it for $44 billion in September last year. Musk, the Chief Executive Officer, mentioned, “During the weekend, an issue hindered the display of images preceding 2014. No images or data were permanently lost. We addressed the glitch, and it will be completely rectified in the upcoming days.”
During the weekend, we faced an issue which prevented us from showcasing images dated before 2014. No images or data loss occurred. We rectified the problem, and it will be fully resolved shortly.
— Support (@Support) August 21, 2023
On Sunday, numerous users reported that tweets published prior to December 2014 were not visible. According to a post on X.com by Tom Coates, all media shared prior to 2014 needed to be taken down from Twitter. Consequently, nearly a decade’s worth of links, images, and videos from the early 2000s were removed. Moreover, the famed selfie by Ellen DeGeneres from the 2014 Academy Awards event, featuring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, lacked the accompanying image in her tweet. Even though the image was later rectified, not all users encountered the same correction.
Tom Coates highlighted this concern and emphasized that even the most retweeted selfie, Ellen DeGeneres’ selfie from the 2014 Oscars, was without its image. The commencement and duration of this glitch remain unclear, as well as the estimated duration to completely address the issue. Investigations revealed that only older posts were impacted by the glitch. This occurred subsequent to Twitter’s modifications in 2016, utilizing metadata on tweets from December 2014 onwards to offer additional data from linked pages and enable attachments without utilizing the tweet’s character count.
There are speculations that the glitch might have been triggered by the endeavor to switch the company’s domain from Twitter.com to X.com. Only one certainty remains, for a period, numerous old tweets authored by Stephen A. Smith were showcased.
Have a glimpse, everyone: IMG_4346.jpeg
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) May 27, 2015
It was noted that most of the removed images and links were eliminated around the time Twitter introduced “enhanced URL enrichment” in 2016. This enhancement incorporated HTML title and description in the Tweet payload, in conjunction with operators to match them. On Tuesday, Elon Musk remarked, “Today, we surpassed 346 billion user-seconds.” He also highlighted a surge a few months prior when several LLM companies endeavored to download the entire database simultaneously. Musk urged journalists to publish on X, expressing, “If you’re a journalist seeking greater liberty to write and increased earnings, then release directly on this platform!”
Origin of Image: Yalcin Sonat / Shutterstock
