Where have my X (aka Twitter) images gone?

Stanislav Kogiku/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

If you're one of my loyal followers on X, the platform that was once called Twitter, or any other social network, you'd know that I frequently share a bunch of tech-related jokes, dad memes, and interesting articles. That's why I started getting worried when I stumbled upon a report from Tom Coates, an esteemed expert in the realm of technology product strategies. According to him, "Twitter has recently eradicated all the media content that was published prior to 2014."

This followed X's proprietor, Elon Musk, suggesting the elimination of the feature to prevent individuals from accessing certain content. Additionally, he proposed implementing a brief delay on rival social media and selected news profiles. Furthermore, Musk suggested altering the name of Twitter and making Tweetdeck exclusively available through a subscription. Lastly, he proposed restricting direct messaging capabilities for non-subscribers. However, none of these propositions have garnered support from the public.

A few pictures managed to endure. Or, at the very least, they resurfaced. The highly renowned photograph from Twitter, termed as Ellen DeGeneres' Oscars selfie of 2014, vanished, yet it made a comeback. This image garnered over 2 million shares exclusively on Twitter.

Furthermore: X aims to eliminate the use of catchy titles when sharing news articles, following Elon Musk's call for journalists to directly publish their content on the platform.

The meme I am known for the most, which portrays the different stages of software development as denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and acceptance, is still nowhere to be found.

Naturally, Twitter wasn't always equipped with visuals. The online platform did not offer any support for images until September 2010. Even then, you couldn't directly upload images until the summer of 2011 through its collaboration with PhotoBucket. Prior to that, the only way to share photos and videos was by tweeting links through services like the now defunct Twitpic and Yfrog.

So, what transpired on this occasion? We are unaware.

The website itself could be experiencing an issue. I've always anticipated that X's quality would decline.

DigitalSilk, a web design firm, recently examined the loading speeds of the top social media platforms to identify the websites that have the quickest loading times, utilizing the Pingdom Website Speed Test.

Additionally: Bluesky versus Threads versus Mastodon: If you bid farewell to Twitter, where will you seek refuge?

The recently revamped X website secured a respectable ninth position out of all the websites analyzed, taking an average of 1.76 seconds to load completely. Leading the pack was LinkedIn, boasting the fastest loading time of just 0.33 seconds. Following closely behind were Mastodon at 0.4 seconds and Snapchat at 0.45 seconds. Pinterest claimed the fourth spot with a loading time of 0.65 seconds, while Blueky, Twitter's direct competitor, landed in fifth place with a loading time of 0.78 seconds.

Twitter's performance is abysmal when considering that it primarily delivers textual content to its users. This suggests underlying technical issues with the platform.

Moreover, it seems that X might not have merely erased all the previous pictures to minimize expenses, as Coates initially theorized. In fact, X remarked, "There is a chance that Twitter didn't purposefully carry out this action to reduce costs, but rather messed up while implementing their punitive link delays on the NYT and other platforms last week. There is a possibility that the redirect responsible for shifting from http to https was disrupted during the procedure."

When individuals began to realize that their previous images and links had disappeared or were not functioning properly, there were no official reports from Twitter addressing the issue. Speculation arose suggesting that X's t.co domain, utilized by X to enhance network traffic and monitor user actions, might be the root cause of the problem.

Additionally: 5 motivations to give Bluesky, a competitor of Twitter, a shot.

Certainly, as Coates noted, "The issue lies in the fact that it doesn't actually alter anything. The pictures are essentially removed from the general online space. The malfunctioning of the URL shortening service might be a deliberate choice (for instance, to minimize the expenses tied to search engines and web crawlers) rather than a technical glitch."

Furthermore, Coates stated, "In the event that this issue is indeed a glitch, the information indicates that it was not a sudden occurrence. Therefore, it can be attributed to one of three possibilities: a deliberate decision made by Elon himself, an unfortunate consequence resulting from one of Elon's decisions, or neglect due to the fact that the engineering team is overwhelmed or lacking in resources as a result of one of Elon's decisions."

We are completely uncertain about the individuals responsible for the recent setback. However, it is worth mentioning that soon after this issue became public, Musk posted a tweet stating, "Regrettably, there are currently no exceptional 'social networks' out there. Many have anticipated our failure, but we will make every effort to create at least one."

Additionally: The recently launched 'BeFake' social networking application promotes users to utilize AI to alter their images.

I can't speak for attempting to achieve greatness, but that doesn't sound like the typical enthusiastic and motivating Musk we've seen lately.

Currently, X is asserting, through its assistance account, that the bug has been rectified. Furthermore, they assure that no pictures or data have been erased. Additionally, they promise that the problem will be completely resolved in the near future. However, it remains to be seen whether or not this claim holds true. As of now, my pictures are still absent. Are yours missing as well?