X says the bug that deleted photos, links posted before 2014 is now fixed

X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday announced that it has fixed the bug that prevented the platform from displaying images tweeted before 2014. Several images, as well as some URLs, from before December 2014 suddenly disappeared, irking users who could not find their old photos on the platform. The issue came under the spotlight after Ellen DeGeneres’ famous selfie with multiple Hollywood actors clicked at the 2014 Academy Awards also disappeared. Although the photo was later restored after an uproar, X users found that their old photos were also no longer visible.

“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 company posted from its @Support account.

On Sunday, several users complained that their tweets published prior to December 2014 were not visible. “Twitter has now removed all media posted before 2014. That’s — so far — almost a decade of pictures and videos from the early 2000s removed from the service,” a user who goes by Tom Coates posted on X.com. DeGeneres’ selfie taken during the 2014 Academy Awards ceremony in the crowd with various celebrities like Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence also went missing from her tweet. The image in DeGeneres’ tweet was later restored, but a reply showed that not everyone had been granted that privilege.

The timing for removing most pictures and links that were broken seemed related to changes Twitter made in 2016 that added “enhanced URL enrichment”. This enhanced version provided a website’s HTML title and description in the Tweet payload, along with Operators for matching those.

Meanwhile, X-owner Elon Musk on Tuesday said, “We exceeded 346 billion user-seconds today.” He noted that this is the platform’s highest usage ever, “apart from a spike a few months ago where multiple LLM companies tried to download our entire database simultaneously.” Also, he encouraged journalists to post on X. “If you’re a journalist who wants more freedom to write and a higher income, then publish directly on this platform!”

— Written with inputs from IANS