As individuals such as Tom Coates pointed out over the weekend, network X appears to have deleted tweets from users older than 2014, without their knowledge or prior notice.
Specifically, this problem manifests itself in the inability to display old posts that contained images or hyperlinks that were converted via Twitter’s embedded URL shortener.
However, this problem does not affect videos, as image support was only added in 2011 and for embedded videos in 2016. However, links to external sites, such as YouTube, no longer work properly.
According to The Verge, the official customer support account (@Support) on the social network X has notified users that the problem has been recognized and will be completely removed in the coming days.
Cost reduction or technical error?
The incident that occurred on Saturday afternoon, when the problem affected the famous selfie released during the 2014 Oscars ceremony.
This image, which included celebrities such as Ellen DeGeneres, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, became the most retweeted image on the social network with over 2 million shares.
There has been speculation that this problem could be due to conscious cost reductions by the owner of the social network, Elon Musk. However, the fact that the image in problematic posts has not been deleted suggests that it is a technical error or bug after all.
There is no official comment from the company’s owner or CEO Linda Yaccarino, but it is assumed that this issue is related to changes made by Twitter in 2016 that included “improved URL enrichment.”
This change was intended to allow the display of linked websites and embedded attachments that do not fall within the 140-character limit on Twitter. According to available data, these metadata began to emerge in December 2014, which seems to be a pivotal moment in relation to this problem.
Similar problems arose after the social network was taken over by the new management last year, along with mass layoffs.
