Twitter has now been renamed xslowed down access to web pages that were repeatedly criticized by the owner, Elon Musklike Facebook anyone ‘New York Times‘. This was revealed by an analysis by ‘The Washington Post’ yesterday. social network added a five second delay when the user accesses these links.
Among the affected websites will be competitors of the platform such as Facebook, Instagram. blue sky And stackAs well as the media like ‘The New York Times’ or the Reuters agency. They all share about being hacked by Musk.
Historically, Twitter has worked as a forum for exchange of views. This state of public squares has enabled many companies, including the media, to have a presence. on the social network to direct the traffic they generate to their web pages., which allows them to monetize their visits. The slowdown in traffic directly undermines this strategy, as those five seconds of waiting for the web to load can scare away most users. Most pages take less than a second.
Doubts about the blockade
The information published so far does not prove that Musk’s decision to directly harm both his rivals and the media he dislikes is behind this problem. Neither the businessman nor X wanted to make a statement about it. “While we don’t know the reasons for this delay, we will be concerned about the selective pressure exerted on any news organization for unclear reasons,” said Charlie Stadtlander, spokesperson for The New York Times. A source from the outlet told the ‘Washington Post’ that the delay will cause “a drop in your traffic” from x.
But the slowdown started on August 4, according to the user of the ‘Hacker News’ portal who first reported the problem. That day, a “absolutist” between Freedom of expression– Asked over 153 million followers to unsubscribe to New York media for reporting on a political debate in South Africa, the country where the world’s second richest man was born. Musk referred to the NYT as “the equivalent of Twitter diarrhea”, “propaganda” or “apologizing for racial genocide”.
“The Washington Post” indicates that X will begin to reverse the slowdown in the economy. access to any of the affected sites a few hours after his analysis was published.