Twitter/X has removed all media posted before 2014

[LocalH]

Reading the thread, it seems like what they've actually done is broken old t.co links. https://twitter.com/simonw/status/1692928633004757144

If they were removing old media, then I doubt that said media would still be present on the CDN. https://twitter.com/simonw/status/1692926763481862438

I'm no Musk fan, but I still try to ensure that my criticism of him and/or Twitter (I refuse to call it X) is accurate.

[kemayo]

Specifically, it looks like they've broken any http links to t.co, while the newer https ones still work.

The practical effect of this is actually worse than the thread stated -- all old media and links on Twitter are broken (at least, since 2010 when they started using t.co). But perhaps they can fix it by restoring the http version of t.co?

[audunw]

I suggest calling it Xitter. (Pronounced with the Chinese pinyin “X”, so like “shitter”). It’s a good compromise.

[toomuchtodo]

ArchiveTeam backs up link shorteners. Might have saved some of this corpus.

[ignoramous]

> Twitter (I refuse to call it X)

Same energy as "I refuse to call it Meta"? I wonder why such thinking takes hold in the first place. It is fascinating someone would so invested in products like they'd be in sports, for example.

[justin66]

I wonder if the guy posting even knows that those of us without Twitter/X accounts cannot read any followup comments to his post, and that when we go to his (or anyone else's) main profile we just see some random ass comments from a long time ago. And the search URL he included doesn't work at all.

Twitter is already a broken platform for sharing your thoughts with others. Congratulations on discovering a way it just became even more broken.

[wredue]

I was wondering wtf.

This was actually bad for me recently, cause I was unable to find tweets from a utility. Twitter would only show me tweets from random years ago, none of which were newer than 5 years old.

Later, I saw that they had tweeted about outages, and I just couldn’t see it cause I dont have an account.

This has not convinced me to get an account. I hope it convinces businesses to stop using twitter and Facebook as main platforms for pushing status notes.

[qbasic_forever]

Wow I wonder how much record of the arab spring protests and uprising are now lost forever. Those protests were all around 2010 to 2012 or so and was in my mind what really pushed Twitter into the public consciousness. I hope the Library of Congress managed to archive all that stuff like they said they would years ago, it would be a big loss to historians for it to disappear overnight.

[baz00]

Based on this level of business acumen I really wish Musk would buy TikTok.

[jtr1]

At this point, I find it hard to believe he and his backers purchased it for any reason other than to destroy it.

[bandyaboot]

That X logo is such terrible UI on devices that use an X icon to close windows.

[kwertyoowiyop]

Though maybe it’s a hint?

[benj111]

Yes. That's the only problem with it....

[AndrewKemendo]

My question is, are we going to highlight every single substantive change to Twitter as it morphs into WeChat?

I think the fact that there’s no valid alternative means that we’re going to probably get stuck in the cycle where people are continuing to expect Twitter to revert or somehow go back to the old Twitter - and being frustrated and dissatisfied that it isn’t

But they are still using it!

[lukeschlather]

WeChat works because it is government-backed and I don't really see how Twitter can morph into WeChat without an authoritarian regime controlling it, promoting it, and stamping out the competition.

Having a simple tool for publicly posting snippets of text seems like a useful thing for a free society though and people are still using Twitter because it still mostly serves that goal. People are highlighting every substantial change because each change moves the needle to where it doesn't serve that purpose for some. Although it's not a hard line and even when it becomes unfit for purpose, it may be better than nothing and also it may be hard to stop using it (you may have a job that involves posting to Twitter, and you can't stop posting to Twitter until you find somewhere else to post.)

[matsemann]

I feel half of Norway collectively moved to bluesky two weeks ago. Mastodon people couldn't overcome the hurdle of selecting a server, and hence it didn't get much widespread traction or adoption. But bluesky most people found each other quickly and just continued there.

[amoss]

It really is easier to refer to it as ex-twitter.

[c-linkage]

I prefer "The App Formerly Known As Twitter" or TAFKAT.

[lambda]

I prefer Xitter, where the "X" is pronounced "sh" like in Xibalba.

[joemaller1]

One of my greatest misconceptions and disappointments was believing anything on the internet would be permanent.

[andsoitis]

Why do you think you thought that things you posted would be permanent?

[tbrownaw]

Only things that you wish would go away are permanent.

[mgiannopoulos]

The issue seems to be fixed https://twitter.com/EllenDeGeneres/status/440322224407314432

[reportgunner]

Who does actually care about this photo ?

Is it some kind of artistic heritage ?

I don't understand why it would be a problem to delete it or who would be harmed by it.

[gala8y]

And I have removed my accounts. X was too much. No, thank you. One time Twitter was a nice place. That was a long time ago.

[VancouverMan]

Consider yourself lucky that you were able to have usable accounts.

Whenever I tried to sign up, even years before the recent ownership change, the newly-created account would be automatically locked within minutes, and I'd be forced to give a phone number to unlock it. I wasn't going to do something stupid like that, of course.

That kind of a user experience, even a long time ago, wasn't so nice.

[infofarmer]

As the old joke goes, whichever platform you're moving to, the average niceness of both X and that will stand to benefit.

[znpy]

Twitter was infested way before musk bought it.

And frankly, most social networks are today too.

[gsatic]

Nothing is free forever especially if it is Ad funded.

[amadeuspagel]

Awesome. But what about the media posted after 2014? And when will they stop people posting new media, returning it to a text only site, forcing people to put at least some effort into trolling? It's easy to troll people into quote RTing you with images.

[frodowtf]

It will always stay "Twitter" simply because you cannot use a search engine with "X"

[cvccvroomvroom]

Build sand castles on the shores of corporations, expect them to be swept away at any moment. So people need to learn the lesson.

[stateofinquiry]

Even if title is misleading, this is a good reminder that you don't own or control anything you post to online platforms.

[bmitc]

No one owns or controls anything.

[mrwnmonm]

What should I do then?

[lapcat]

Why would you complain about it if you weren't using the platform?