Platform X outage halts services for the second time in two days
The social media platform “X” (formerly Twitter) experienced a sudden technical disruption that led to the suspension of services for a wide range of users around the world, for the second time in less than two days, raising a wave of questions about the stability of the infrastructure of the platform owned by American billionaire Elon Musk.
Details of the new technical malfunction
Thousands of users faced significant difficulties accessing their accounts. The main problem was a blank white screen appearing when attempting to open the site via browsers, while app users experienced their homepage (timeline) failing to refresh. Numerous tech experts reported error messages related to Cloudflare services, the company responsible for securing and distributing content for many major websites, indicating a communication issue between the platform's servers and its users.
Down Detector, a website that tracks the status of digital services globally, has recorded a sharp jump in outage reports over the past few hours, with its maps confirming that the problem was not local but affected multiple geographical areas, including the United States, Europe, and parts of the Middle East.
Frequent breakdowns and infrastructure challenges
This outage comes just 48 hours after a similar disruption hit the platform, with more than 28,000 users in the US alone reporting they were unable to use the app. This rapid succession of outages highlights the technical challenges the company has faced since its acquisition by Elon Musk in a $44 billion deal in late 2022.
Many technical experts link the increasing frequency of these outages to the platform's extensive layoffs, which affected critical engineering teams responsible for site reliability engineering and server maintenance. The workforce reduction of over 80%, coupled with the closure of some data centers to cut costs, has made the platform more vulnerable to technical problems and slower to respond to emergency repairs.
The importance of the platform and the impact of the outage
These outages are particularly significant given the pivotal role that the X platform plays in the digital media landscape, serving as the primary source for breaking news and real-time political and social discussions. Any service disruption, even a brief one, interrupts the flow of information for millions of users, journalists, and government institutions that rely on it as an official communication channel.
As of the time of writing this report, the platform's official technical support account has not issued any explanatory statement revealing the exact reasons behind this recurring outage, which increases the uncertainty among investors and advertisers who are monitoring the platform's stability with growing concern.
