Elon Musk's social media platform X, previously known as Twitter, was hit by a significant global outage on Thursday, leaving a vast number of users unable to view posts or refresh their timelines.
Widespread Disruption Across the Platform
The technical failure began in the early hours of Thursday, 20th February, with users across the United Kingdom and around the world encountering error messages. Instead of their usual feed, people were met with a screen stating, "Welcome to X!" and "This is the best place to see what’s happening in your world. Find some people and topics to follow now."
This effectively presented the platform as if it were a brand new account with no followed users, rendering it unusable for accessing current content. The outage was not limited to a specific region, with reports flooding in from numerous countries, confirming a widespread service disruption.
Downdetector, a website that monitors online service outages, recorded a massive spike in problem reports related to X, exceeding 120,000 incidents at the peak of the disruption. This confirmed the scale of the issue was not just a minor glitch but a major platform-wide failure.
User Frustration and Official Response
The sudden outage caused significant frustration and confusion among the platform's user base. Many took to rival social networks and forums to confirm whether others were experiencing the same problems, with the terms "X Down" and "Twitter Down" quickly trending online.
Initially, there was no immediate public comment from X's official communications channels or from the company's owner, Elon Musk. The silence from the platform's leadership added to the uncertainty surrounding the cause and expected duration of the outage.
However, after approximately an hour of widespread disruption, service began to gradually restore for users. Timelines and posting functionality slowly returned to normal, though some reported intermittent issues as the system stabilised.
Recurring Instability Under Musk's Leadership
This incident is not an isolated one for the platform since its acquisition by Elon Musk and its subsequent rebranding from Twitter to X. The service has experienced several notable outages and technical issues, raising questions about platform stability and infrastructure resilience.
Each major outage event fuels discussion about the long-term reliability of the platform, which remains a critical tool for news dissemination, public discourse, and official communications for many organisations and governments.
While the precise technical cause of this specific February outage was not immediately disclosed by X's engineering team, such global failures highlight the complex challenges of maintaining large-scale, real-time social networks. For users, the event served as a stark reminder of the platform's central yet sometimes fragile role in digital communication.
