Matthias Balk/picture alliance via Getty Images
Social media platform X has been taking its users on a roller coaster ride to start the week. Based on data from Downdetector, the site has been up and down throughout the day so far and is currently inaccessible.
The first outage started around 6 a.m. ET, with more than 20,000 reports that X was down. The disruption seemed to have been resolved. But then reports popped up again around 9 a.m. ET and then more dramatically around 10 a.m. ET, with more than 40,000 people chiming in. The reports had dipped by 11 a.m. ET, indicating that this second outage may have been settled. But by 11:30 a.m. ET, the report count climbed once again, hitting almost 30,000 and pointing to a third outage within the space of a few hours.
Screenshot by Lance Whitney/ZDNET/Downdetector
With no easy way to communicate with its users, the people behind X haven’t revealed the cause of the outages or what they’re doing to fix it. Without knowing the details, the problem could be the result of an internal snafu or some type of cyberattack. With Musk now such a controversial figure, politically and otherwise, it’s not difficult to imagine some group of hackers launching a DDoS campaign or other type of attack against the site.
Also: How to manage Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads all from one free app
While X battles to come back to life, there’s always Bluesky, Threads, and even Mastodon, all of which have been operating with no glitches today.