Musk's X delays access to content on Reuters, NY Times, social media rivals

Bluesky Digital Assets

16/08/2023 24:58

By Sheila Dang
       Aug 15 (Reuters) - Social media company X, formerly
known as Twitter, delayed access to links to content on the
Reuters and New York Times websites as well as rivals like
Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram, according to a Washington Post
report on Tuesday. 
    Clicking a link on X to one of the affected websites
resulted in a delay of about five seconds before the webpage
loaded, the Washington Post reported, citing tests it conducted
on Tuesday. Reuters also saw a similar delay in tests it ran.
    By late Tuesday afternoon, X appeared to have eliminated the
delay. When contacted for comment, X confirmed the delay was
removed but did not elaborate. 
    Billionaire Elon Musk, who bought Twitter in October, has
previously lashed out at news organizations and journalists who
have reported critically on his companies, which include Tesla
 TSLA.O  and SpaceX. Twitter has previously prevented users from
posting links to competing social media platforms. 
    Reuters could not establish the precise time when X began
delaying links to some websites. 
    A user on Hacker News, a tech forum, posted about the delay
earlier on Tuesday and wrote that X began delaying links to the
New York Times on Aug. 4. On that day, Musk criticized the
publication's coverage of South Africa and accused it of
supporting calls for genocide. Reuters has no evidence that the
two events are related.
    A spokesperson for the New York Times said it has not
received an explanation from X about the link delay.
    "While we don't know the rationale behind the application of
this time delay, we would be concerned by targeted pressure
applied to any news organization for unclear reasons," the
spokesperson said on Tuesday. 
    A Reuters spokesperson said: "We are aware of the report in
the Washington Post of a delay in opening links to Reuters
stories on X. We are looking into the matter."    
    Bluesky, an X rival that has Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey
on its board, did not reply to a request for comment.
    Meta  META.O , which owns Facebook and Instagram, did not
immediately respond to a request for comment.

 (Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas; Editing by Kenneth Li and
Deepa Babington)
 ((Sheila.Dang@thomsonreuters.com; +1 646-983-0894;))