Users of Elon Musk-owned social media platform X were having trouble accessing their accounts on Monday. The site came back online briefly only to go down again. The reason for the cut is not yet clear, but Mr Musk has blamed it on an ongoing "massive" cyber attack.
The billionaire owner of X said the platform gets attacked every day but that this latest was "done with a lot of resources".
"Either a large, co-ordinated group and/or a country is involved," he said on his account after X came back on line. "Tracing."
In response to his post, X user Hassan Sajwani wrote, "They want to silence you and this platform," to which the Mr Musk replied, "Yes."
Later on Monday during an interview with Larry Kudlow on Fox Business channel, Mr Musk was asked about the alleged cyber attack.
“We’re not sure what happened,” he said.
“There was a massive cyber attack trying to bring down the whole system with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area.”
Whatever or the origin of the outage, many around the world were met with a message for several hours on X that read: “Posts aren't loading right now."
DownDetector, a website that tracks internet cuts, reported two significant spurts of user problems with X between 4am and 11am ET. NetBlocks, which tracks cyber security and digital governance, also confirmed the cut.
“X (formerly Twitter) is experiencing international outages, but the incident is not related to country-level internet disruptions or filtering,” a post from NetBlocks read.
By several estimates, X is used by about 600 million users, making it one of the most popular social media sites globally. It was bought by Tesla and SpaceX tycoon Mr Musk in 2022, who cut staff throughout the company.
His support of US President Donald Trump, coupled with ample posts containing misinformation and disinformation, has thrust X into various controversies, prompting several advertisers to leave the platform, and causing hundreds of thousands of users to flee.
X's dominance has also been chipped away at with the debut of Meta's Threads platform and BlueSky, which many consider to be a decentralised version of it.
In addition to social networking, X has also ventured into the AI space, by incorporating xAI's Grok 3 chatbot into the platform for users signing up for premium services.
As of the writing of this article, X appeared to be working, although still occasionally glitchy. X and Elon Musk have not yet posted about the cut to the service.
You may remember …
Robbie Keane (Atletico de Kolkata) The Irish striker is, along with his former Spurs teammate Dimitar Berbatov, the headline figure in this season’s ISL, having joined defending champions ATK. His grand entrance after arrival from Major League Soccer in the US will be delayed by three games, though, due to a knee injury.
Dimitar Berbatov (Kerala Blasters) Word has it that Rene Meulensteen, the Kerala manager, plans to deploy his Bulgarian star in central midfield. The idea of Berbatov as an all-action, box-to-box midfielder, might jar with Spurs and Manchester United supporters, who more likely recall an always-languid, often-lazy striker.
Wes Brown (Kerala Blasters) Revived his playing career last season to help out at Blackburn Rovers, where he was also a coach. Since then, the 23-cap England centre back, who is now 38, has been reunited with the former Manchester United assistant coach Meulensteen, after signing for Kerala.
Andre Bikey (Jamshedpur) The Cameroonian defender is onto the 17th club of a career has taken him to Spain, Portugal, Russia, the UK, Greece, and now India. He is still only 32, so there is plenty of time to add to that tally, too. Scored goals against Liverpool and Chelsea during his time with Reading in England.
Emiliano Alfaro (Pune City) The Uruguayan striker has played for Liverpool – the Montevideo one, rather than the better-known side in England – and Lazio in Italy. He was prolific for a season at Al Wasl in the Arabian Gulf League in 2012/13. He returned for one season with Fujairah, whom he left to join Pune.
2020 Oscars winners: in numbers
- Parasite – 4
- 1917– 3
- Ford v Ferrari – 2
- Joker – 2
- Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood – 2
- American Factory – 1
- Bombshell – 1
- Hair Love – 1
- Jojo Rabbit – 1
- Judy – 1
- Little Women – 1
- Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You're a Girl) – 1
- Marriage Story – 1
- Rocketman – 1
- The Neighbors' Window – 1
- Toy Story 4 – 1
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
