Elon Musk would be punishing websites run by companies with which he has publicly fought. Several media outlets and users reported on Tuesday that Twitter, now known as X, was interfering with the links of the New York TimesThreads, Bluesky and other portals, so they load considerably slower.
Those who clicked on a link New York Times, for example, they had to wait about five seconds before viewing the page, according to various tests done by the Washington Post. The delay was also reported by users on the forum of Hacker News.
Other sites affected were Facebook, Reuters, Substack and Instagram. Everyone, at some point, attacked by Elon Musk, who bought Twitter last year.
The Washington Post explained that the delay affects the domain t.co, a link shortening service that Twitter uses to process each link posted on its platform. Traffic is routed through this domain, which allows the social network to track and, in this case, limit the activity to the destination website.
A user of Hacker News said the unexplained delay in the New York Times It appeared for the first time on August 4. It is “so consistent that it is obviously deliberate”, explained. Just that same day, Elon Musk called the American media an “apologist for racial genocide” in response to a report on a political controversy in South Africa. He has previously accused them of being propagandists and of being “the equivalent of diarrhea on Twitter.”
The impact of Elon Musk’s measure on Twitter
Is it so serious that a website takes five seconds to load? Yes, it can imply millions in losses for sites like the ones mentioned. A study of Google on mobile traffic published in 2016 ensures that the 53% of people abandoned a website if it took more than three seconds to view.
Companies such as those affected usually invest millions of dollars so that their portals open as quickly as possible and guarantee user traffic. Falling traffic is something that can directly impact advertising revenue.
Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesman for the New York Times, said in a statement that they had confirmed the delay with their own measurements. The middle “has not received any explanation from the platform about this problem”Stadlander said. “While we don’t know the reason behind this delay, we are concerned that this is pressure directed at any news organization for unclear reasons,” he added.
The co-founders of stack They also urged Twitter in a statement to reverse the measure. Last April, Musk had already limited any link on the social network that redirected to the domain of the newsletter platform. He had also restricted any tweets that had the word “Substack” in them. The tycoon was then upset that Substack had announced a new feature called “Notes,” which in some ways replicated Twitter.
In the late afternoon, after the news was made public, several of the affected websites had started to function normally. As often happens, Twitter did not want to comment on it.