Buzz
Elon Musk's X social network appears to be throttling access to select websites
Elon Musk's X social platform reportedly throttles access to sites like The New York Times, Reuters, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and Substack, causing over 5 seconds of delay for users accessing these sites from the X app.
Twitter's former trust and safety head reported on Bluesky that a 5-second delay to load 650 bytes of data in Chrome indicates potential interference, highlighting that even a one-second lag could distract users, increase platform abandonment, and harm the website's metrics.
Users have noticed that links to Thread, a Meta-released app similar to X, are also experiencing slowed access on X. Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, responded with a 'thinking face emoji' to a discussion on Threads about this issue.
Noteworthy is that the websites experiencing slowdowns have previously been criticized by Elon Musk. Musk's personal disputes have influenced social media policies before, including blocking links to Substack, Threads, and other competitors. Earlier this year, Musk also revoked the New York Times' verification badge.
X has yet to respond to the incident.
