Speculation has arisen, with some suggesting that the glitch might have been triggered during the transition of the company's domains from Twitter.com to X.com
Over the past weekend, reports began circulating regarding an issue that impacted older tweets. Eventually, it was determined that tweets posted prior to December 2014, containing either images or links shortened by Twitter, were affected. Tom Coates drew attention to this problem through a post, revealing that even the famous 2014 Ellen DeGeneres Oscars selfie, which held the record for the "most retweeted ever," had lost its accompanying image.
The official support account from X, formerly Twitter, acknowledged the situation. It stated, “Over the weekend we had a bug that prevented us from displaying images from before 2014. No images or data were lost. We fixed the bug, and the issue will be fully resolved in the coming days.”
The provided statement lacks specific details concerning the nature of the bug, its onset, and the reasons behind the anticipated duration for the complete resolution. Upon further investigation, it was revealed that alterations implemented by Twitter in 2016 utilised metadata from tweets posted from December 2014 onwards. This metadata was used to supplement additional data from linked web pages and enable attachments without consuming characters within a tweet. Consequently, the bug solely affected earlier posts.
Speculation has arisen, with some suggesting that the glitch might have been triggered during the transition of the company's domains from Twitter.com to X.com. Nonetheless, the exact cause remains uncertain.