Musk's Social Network X Faces Backlash Over Missing Media from the Early 2010s

• Financial

Elon Musk's acquisition of the former Twitter platform has stirred controversy yet again. Social Network X, as it's now known after Musk's renaming, has seemingly deleted a vast swath of photos uploaded between 2011 and 2014.

Adding to the users' woes, links shortened via Twitter's own URL shortener are also malfunctioning, leaving many to question the integrity of their digital history on the platform.

A Concerned User Raises the Alarm

Tom Coates, a long-time user who created his Twitter profile in 2007, was among the first to highlight the issue.

He took to Social Network X, expressing his dismay with a message that radiated the collective angst of many longtime users: "More vandalism from @elonmusk. Twitter has now removed all media posted before 2014. Thats - so far - almost a decade of pictures and videos from the early 2000s removed from the service." Coates went on to provide an example to validate his concerns, showcasing a void in his media tweets from before 2014.

More vandalism from @elonmusk. Twitter has now removed all media posted before 2014. Thats - so far - almost a decade of pictures and videos from the early 2000s removed from the service.

For example, here’s a search of my media tweets from before 2014.

https://t.co/FU6K34oqmA — Tom Coates (@tomcoates) August 19, 2023

The underlying glitch seems connected to Twitter's link-shortener domain, a mechanism that condenses URLs and allows the platform to track user engagement.

This domain's malfunction is allegedly responsible for the vanishing photos and broken links.

Poring Over a Digital Memory Lane

Twitter users first gained the ability to upload original photos in 2011. Before this integration, the reliance was primarily on third-party services like TwitPic for photo sharing.

But with TwitPic shutting its doors in 2014, countless memories from that period faced obliteration. Now, even the direct uploads to Twitter during the 2011-2014 window are under threat, as they've mysteriously disappeared from the platform.

Rumors and theories abound as the digital community grapples with the unexpected erasure. Users on Reddit's Datahoarder forum, a community fervently dedicated to the preservation of data, have posited that the transition of the platform to the X.com domain might be a contributing factor.

Yet others speculate cost-saving measures on photo hosting to be the culprit. As of now, however, these remain mere conjectures in the absence of any official statement.