 "Elon Musk’s X restores service after brief outage hits thousands of users in US")
A brief outage hindered access to X, the platform owned by Elon Musk, with more than 19,000 users across the United States reporting problems on Sunday, according to figures logged by Downdetector. The tracking site recorded a surge in user reports during the disruption, indicating widespread difficulty accessing the service.
The platform experienced difficulties for about 45 minutes, and Downdetector said the problem was largely resolved by 12.04 pm ET. X did not respond to a request for comment.
Users reported problems such as difficulty logging in, slow feed loading, and trouble posting or viewing content. The disruption appeared to affect people in several US cities, although the scale of any international impact was not immediately known.
The number of reports logged on Downdetector may not reflect the actual scale of the disruption, as its figures rely on user-submitted data. The website tracks outages by compiling status reports from multiple sources.
Tech glitch
X experienced a significant technical failure on January 16, leaving thousands of users worldwide unable to refresh their feeds or post updates. Many also encountered error messages on the mobile app during the disruption.
The incident unfolded as the platform continued to face scrutiny over its AI chatbot Grok, which drew sharp criticism after reports that users were able to generate sexualised deepfake images of women and minors through simple text prompts.
On January 26, the European Commission opened a formal investigation to determine whether the platform had properly evaluated and addressed risks linked to Grok’s features. Regulators in the United Kingdom, Indonesia, Philippines, and Malaysia had already taken similar steps, with the chatbot temporarily blocked in all four jurisdictions.
Quick Reads
View AllThe Commission condemned the AI-generated material as “unlawful and appalling”, adding its voice to growing international criticism of the platform’s handling of sexually explicit content produced via Grok.
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