Musk's X caught throttling outbound links to websites he doesn't like
(2023/08/16)
- Reference: 1692210810
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/08/16/x_throttling_links/
- Source link:
Elon Musk's X was this week caught throttling outbound links to several sites, coincidentally ones that the billionaire has complained about or feuded with in the past.
Links directing users of the website formerly known as Twitter to news sources such as The New York Times and Reuters, social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, Threads and Bluesky and subscription newsletter service Substack were all being delayed based on testing, The Washington Post [1]reported . Several other news sites, including the Times, confirmed the delays in their own probing.
Goodbye to Tweetdeck
Speaking of annoying your users, X is making good on its threat to put TweetDeck behind the paywall that is Twitter Blue X Premium, albeit a bit later than planned.
Twitter's Support account [2]said on July 3 that users would need to be verified (ie, [3]Twitter Blue subscribers ) to access TweetDeck in 30 days. We're a bit past that point, and as of August 15 some TweetDeck (now known as XPro) users began reporting they were being redirected to a signup page for X Premium instead of seeing the XPro interface.
The Register can verify this is the case, as it happened to your reporter today.
Musk and company have [4]made [5]several [6]attempts to [7]boost profitability at X, and putting TweetDeck behind a paywall is just another of those gambits - one that old Twitter already [8]considered , but decided against, way back in 2017.
Unaffected were links to the WaPo itself, Fox News, or X rival Mastodon, multiple sources reported. On Tuesday afternoon when the throttling stories began emerging, X appeared to ease off, as affected sites all began to load normally. Earlier reports put loading times for affected sites at five or more seconds. Tests performed by The Register today indicated no delay reaching the previously affected domains.
Website loading times have a huge impact on readership: if a page takes too long to open, even a couple of seconds, people will click back or close the tab. It also affects conversion rate, a ratio between visitors and a desirable action by those visitors. For example, if for every 1,000 people who land on a page, ten sign up for a newsletter, that's a conversation rate of one percent.
Cloudflare [9]reckons 47 percent of customers expect pages to load in two seconds or less. Beyond 4.2 seconds, conversion rates fall below a single percent, Cloudflare said.
[10]
The slowdown was first pointed out by a Hacker News denizen who [11]said they noticed a delay in reaching the Times and Threads on August 4 - the same day Musk attacked the NYT on X, calling it a " [12]racial genocide apologist " that [13]supported calls for race war over its [14]reporting on the singing of a controversial song, considered by right-wing commentators to be racist, at a South African political rally.
[15]
[16]
"I've been tracking the NYT delay ever since it was added and the delay is so consistent it's obviously deliberate," HN poster xslowzone said yesterday. The Times separately verified the delays were occurring, and [17]said the news outlet hadn't been given an explanation.
As for Musk's problems with the other platforms, we likely need not remind readers of the ongoing Musk-Zuckerberg [18]cage fight saga that kicked off when Meta launched Threads, its X competitor. Decentralized Twitter rival Mastodon, which wasn't caught up in the throttling, was [19]blocked entirely on Twitter late last year when users began fleeing over dissatisfaction with Musk's antics as Twitter's new owner.
[20]Cage match: Zuck finally realizes Elon is full of twit
[21]X-rated auction sells last vestiges of pre-Musk Twitter
[22]X tries to win back advertisers with brand safety promises
[23]We'd pay good money to see... oh dear, Elon Musk 'needs an MRI scan'
While we couldn't reach X to get a comment on the alleged throttling, even former Twitter insiders seem to agree something was up.
"This is one of those things that seems too crazy to be true, even for Twitter, until you see it inexplicably take five seconds for Chrome to receive 650 bytes of data," Yoel Roth, former head of trust and safety at Twitter, said in a post to Bluesky yesterday. "Why annoy users like this?" ®
Get our [24]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/08/15/twitter-x-links-delayed/
[2] https://twitter.com/Support/status/1675990712297443330
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/03/paid_and_legacy_twitter_verification/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/26/musks_x_tries_again_to/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/19/musk_says_twitter_advertisers_can/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/09/x_tries_to_win_back/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/31/twitter_value_decline/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2017/03/24/twitter_tweetdeck_paid_for_rumour/
[9] https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/performance/more/website-performance-conversion-rates/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZN1HCuA9UKt1AOsBa9A5eAAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[11] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37130060
[12] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1687577653400977410
[13] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1687520435825745920
[14] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/world/africa/south-africa-kill-boer-song.html
[15] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZN1HCuA9UKt1AOsBa9A5eAAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZN1HCuA9UKt1AOsBa9A5eAAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[17] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/15/technology/x-delay-throttle.html
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/14/zuck_elon_cage_fight/
[19] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63999452
[20] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/14/zuck_elon_cage_fight/
[21] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/14/twitter_x_auction/
[22] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/09/x_tries_to_win_back/
[23] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/07/musk_cage_fight_latest/
[24] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Links directing users of the website formerly known as Twitter to news sources such as The New York Times and Reuters, social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, Threads and Bluesky and subscription newsletter service Substack were all being delayed based on testing, The Washington Post [1]reported . Several other news sites, including the Times, confirmed the delays in their own probing.
Goodbye to Tweetdeck
Speaking of annoying your users, X is making good on its threat to put TweetDeck behind the paywall that is Twitter Blue X Premium, albeit a bit later than planned.
Twitter's Support account [2]said on July 3 that users would need to be verified (ie, [3]Twitter Blue subscribers ) to access TweetDeck in 30 days. We're a bit past that point, and as of August 15 some TweetDeck (now known as XPro) users began reporting they were being redirected to a signup page for X Premium instead of seeing the XPro interface.
The Register can verify this is the case, as it happened to your reporter today.
Musk and company have [4]made [5]several [6]attempts to [7]boost profitability at X, and putting TweetDeck behind a paywall is just another of those gambits - one that old Twitter already [8]considered , but decided against, way back in 2017.
Unaffected were links to the WaPo itself, Fox News, or X rival Mastodon, multiple sources reported. On Tuesday afternoon when the throttling stories began emerging, X appeared to ease off, as affected sites all began to load normally. Earlier reports put loading times for affected sites at five or more seconds. Tests performed by The Register today indicated no delay reaching the previously affected domains.
Website loading times have a huge impact on readership: if a page takes too long to open, even a couple of seconds, people will click back or close the tab. It also affects conversion rate, a ratio between visitors and a desirable action by those visitors. For example, if for every 1,000 people who land on a page, ten sign up for a newsletter, that's a conversation rate of one percent.
Cloudflare [9]reckons 47 percent of customers expect pages to load in two seconds or less. Beyond 4.2 seconds, conversion rates fall below a single percent, Cloudflare said.
[10]
The slowdown was first pointed out by a Hacker News denizen who [11]said they noticed a delay in reaching the Times and Threads on August 4 - the same day Musk attacked the NYT on X, calling it a " [12]racial genocide apologist " that [13]supported calls for race war over its [14]reporting on the singing of a controversial song, considered by right-wing commentators to be racist, at a South African political rally.
[15]
[16]
"I've been tracking the NYT delay ever since it was added and the delay is so consistent it's obviously deliberate," HN poster xslowzone said yesterday. The Times separately verified the delays were occurring, and [17]said the news outlet hadn't been given an explanation.
As for Musk's problems with the other platforms, we likely need not remind readers of the ongoing Musk-Zuckerberg [18]cage fight saga that kicked off when Meta launched Threads, its X competitor. Decentralized Twitter rival Mastodon, which wasn't caught up in the throttling, was [19]blocked entirely on Twitter late last year when users began fleeing over dissatisfaction with Musk's antics as Twitter's new owner.
[20]Cage match: Zuck finally realizes Elon is full of twit
[21]X-rated auction sells last vestiges of pre-Musk Twitter
[22]X tries to win back advertisers with brand safety promises
[23]We'd pay good money to see... oh dear, Elon Musk 'needs an MRI scan'
While we couldn't reach X to get a comment on the alleged throttling, even former Twitter insiders seem to agree something was up.
"This is one of those things that seems too crazy to be true, even for Twitter, until you see it inexplicably take five seconds for Chrome to receive 650 bytes of data," Yoel Roth, former head of trust and safety at Twitter, said in a post to Bluesky yesterday. "Why annoy users like this?" ®
Get our [24]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/08/15/twitter-x-links-delayed/
[2] https://twitter.com/Support/status/1675990712297443330
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/03/paid_and_legacy_twitter_verification/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/26/musks_x_tries_again_to/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/19/musk_says_twitter_advertisers_can/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/09/x_tries_to_win_back/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/31/twitter_value_decline/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2017/03/24/twitter_tweetdeck_paid_for_rumour/
[9] https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/performance/more/website-performance-conversion-rates/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZN1HCuA9UKt1AOsBa9A5eAAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[11] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37130060
[12] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1687577653400977410
[13] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1687520435825745920
[14] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/world/africa/south-africa-kill-boer-song.html
[15] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZN1HCuA9UKt1AOsBa9A5eAAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZN1HCuA9UKt1AOsBa9A5eAAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[17] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/15/technology/x-delay-throttle.html
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/14/zuck_elon_cage_fight/
[19] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63999452
[20] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/14/zuck_elon_cage_fight/
[21] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/14/twitter_x_auction/
[22] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/09/x_tries_to_win_back/
[23] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/07/musk_cage_fight_latest/
[24] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Dan 55
[1]t.co links have been around probably as long as Twitter , only Musk used his galaxy brain to stick a sleep(5) in there if the address the t.co link lead to was NYT, Threads, etc...
[1] https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/url-shortener
Mr unlimited free speech strikes again
DS999
He believes in it except when someone says something he doesn't agree with.
Imagine if Facebook was caught delaying links to Twitter (I refuse to use his stupid new name) he'd scream bloody murder about "free speech" because he has never understood exactly what the first amendment means, only what the right wing wishes it meant.
Re: Mr unlimited free speech strikes again
ShameElevator
But Musk has free speech and is allowed to wait for five seconds before loading a website. Yeah, that’s it. Free speech restored!
mark l 2
That why I select copy and paste the full URL to an new tab than go through the URL redirects that these social media website use. They exist so they can track what you are clicking on and even block site they deem you shouldn't be visiting.
"Why annoy users like this?"
Anonymous Coward
> Yoel Roth, former head of trust and safety at Twitter, said in a post to Bluesky yesterday
Just in case anyone has ever wondered what a "rhetorical question" looks like, Yoel here is leading a master class, by example.
So basically x.com is engaged in DNS fraud. opening a fake "before" website...pretending its the actual website and delaying you. Since once you're on a REAL website x.com can't control the speed of access.
So this was 100% malicious fuckery. No wonder 85-95% of twitter users quit.