Censorship

Report: X May Have Delayed Access to External Sources

AUG 16 2023·Updated AUG 17 2023

Story

Image credit: NASA HQ [via Flickr]

The Facts

A Washington Post report said on Tuesday that Elon Musk’s social media company X, formerly known as Twitter, delayed access to links to news outlets such as Reuters and The New York Times as well as competitors Bluesky, Facebook, and Instagram.
Reuters
The Post conducted a test showing that Twitter links to the affected sites would send users to a blank screen that lasted for up to five seconds before the linked webpage would open. Hacker News was the first to report the alleged delays.
CNN
The delays only involved t.co links, a service that processes and abbreviates links posted to X, and the problems were reportedly resolved by Tuesday afternoon with links to the sites in question opening within one second of clicking.
guardian
Critics are accusing Musk of "throttling" access to sites that have been critical of him and his management of X. The delays for the New York Times started on Aug. 4 — the same day Musk had criticized the newspaper for a politically-sensitive story on South Africa.
wapo
Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg also responded to the Hacker News post about X’s delays with a thinking face emoji.
Business Insider
There's no evidence to yet suggest if the delays are linked to any of Musk’s comments about the afflicted outlets, and X has yet to respond to the questions. The Times said it hasn’t received an explanation while Meta and Bluesky have not made an official comment.
Independent

Sources Split

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The Spin

Narrative A

Elon Musk can be called many things, but “free speech absolutist” is definitely not one of them. It’s quite suspect how all the delays happen to affect competitor sites and news outlets that Elon Musk has publicly disparaged. This is another disturbing turn of events for the "Platform Formally Known as Twitter."

Gizmodo Australia

Narrative B

We only see legacy media and big tech outlets up in arms about censorship now that there are alleged reports of X delaying access to links for five seconds. It’s not even confirmed that there are any intentional delays to websites. Still, if that’s the case, it only shows the need for regulation that prohibits online favoritism coming from all sides. The internet is a public space, and we must give everyone equal access.

Breitbart