X, formerly recognized as Twitter until its recent rebranding, is encountering an issue displaying historical posts that include images or hyperlinks shortened through Twitter’s internal URL shortener. The exact onset of this problem remains uncertain, but it came to the forefront on a Saturday afternoon through a post by Tom Coates. Before that, a Brazilian vtuber, @DaniloTakagi, had already pointed out the issue several days earlier.
Presently, the problem seems to impact tweets posted before December 2014, as evident from the posts visible on my account. Fortunately, videos remain unaffected, as Twitter introduced native image support in 2011 and integrated video support in 2016. However, links to external platforms like YouTube now appear as plain text accompanied by a non-functional t.co URL.
On Saturday afternoon, as highlighted by Coates, a technical glitch temporarily removed the image from one of the most iconic tweets of all time (back when they were still referred to as “tweets”). This tweet featured a selfie shared by Ellen DeGeneres, the host of the 2014 Oscars, surrounded by celebrities such as Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. The selfie was taken during the live broadcast of the awards show.
The incident swiftly propelled a particular tweet to secure the distinguished title of “most retweeted ever,” amassing over 2 million shares on the platform. In a peculiar turn of events, the tweet’s content had gone viral not due to its inherent message but rather due to an unexpected technical hiccup that occurred.
Technical Glitches and Speculation of X
Curiously, amidst the buzz and speculation, neither the owner of the platform, Elon Musk, nor the former CEO of X, Linda Yaccarino, have made any public statements regarding this intriguing occurrence. Despite the absence of official explanations, a noteworthy development emerged during the timeline of events: the photograph associated with the tweet was mysteriously restored to its original post sometime between the late hours of Saturday and the early hours of Sunday.
While many pondered whether this incident was part of a deliberate strategy to curtail costs on Musk’s part, the reinstatement of the original media suggests an alternative explanation – that of a technical glitch or error. It’s worth noting that such technical issues have been on the rise since the takeover of the platform and the subsequent streamlining of the workforce that occurred in the preceding year.
There is another older tweeted picture that remains functional as well. This image was shared on President Obama’s account following his successful 2012 reelection campaign, depicting a warm embrace between him and the First Lady. Whether this image was manually reinstated is unclear, but it was still viewable on Saturday afternoon.
The timeline for the cutoff in images and broken links appears to be linked to Twitter’s updates in 2016. During this time, Twitter introduced “enhanced URL enrichment,” allowing for previews of related web content and native attachments that didn’t exceed the 140-character limit. As per developer documentation, the data for these new features started becoming noticeable around December 2014.
Evolution of URL Enrichment and Native Attachments on the Platform
From the X Developer Platform Data Dictionary:
“In March 2012, the expanded URL enrichment was introduced. Before this time, the Tweet payloads included only the URL provided by the user. So, if the user has a shortened URL, matching on (expanded) URLs of interest can be challenging. With both Historical PowerTrack and the Search APIs, these metadata are available starting in March 2012.
In July 2016, enhanced URL enrichment was introduced. This improved version provides a website’s HTML title and description in the Tweet payload, along with Operators for matching those. With Historical PowerTrack, these metadata became available in July 2016. With the Search APIs, these metadata began emerging in December 2014.
In September 2016, Twitter introduced ‘native attachments’ where a trailing shared link is not counted against the 140 Tweet character limit. Both URL enrichments still apply to these shared links.”
The company, known as Twitter or X, did not respond when requested for comment.
