Clicking on content from important news sources and rival apps resulted in delayed access, displaying a blank screen.
On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that Twitter seemed to enforce a five-second delay, a practice known as throttling, affecting sites like New York Times, Reuters, Instagram, and Blue Sky. The delay impacted Twitter’s rivals and news outlets that Elon Musk disfavored due to critical content. The Washington Post’s tests revealed that clicking links on Twitter led to brief blank screen openings.
The apparent delay pertained exclusively to t.co links, which are processed and shortened before being shared on Twitter. By Tuesday afternoon, the problem seemed resolved, as links opened almost immediately upon clicking.
Musk continues to confront his critics in the media. In April, Twitter categorized BBC and NPR as “state-affiliated media,” causing backlash from both organizations and their employees. NPR declared their departure from Twitter on April 12, and their main page has remained inactive since.
During that identical month, Twitter initiated the practice of flagging links to Substack, an autonomous platform for publishing content. This decision followed Substack’s introduction of “Substack Notes,” a feature that mimicked Twitter’s interface for their community of newsletter creators and readers, some of whom are paying members. Substack contended that Notes and Twitter could coexist harmoniously rather than function as rivals.
