The Platform Formerly Known as Twitter Removes Images Between 2011-2014

There’s something off about the X, formerly known as Twitter, content posted in the early 2000s.

On Saturday, technologist and X platform user Tom Coates revealed some interesting information about the Twitter platform, which has been renamed X. Coates alleges that photos on then-Twitter posted between 2011 and 2014 have been removed from the server. “Thats—so far—almost a decade of pictures and videos from the early 2000s removed from the service,” Coates wrote with an example of his discovery.

More vandalism from @elonmusk. Twitter has now removed all media posted before 2014. Thats – so far – almost a decade of pictures and videos from the early 2000s removed from the service.

For example, here’s a search of my media tweets from before 2014. https://t.co/FU6K34oqmA

— Tom Coates (@tomcoates) August 19, 2023

“This is what Twitter pre-2014 looks like—every image and video removed and replaced with a dead link. Epic vandalism by Musk. Another cost-saving exercise presumably—and one which 100% should make you trust his statements Twitter is just about to make money,” Coates wrote.

According to The Verge, an image of Ellen’s famous ‘most retweeted’ selfie from the 2014 Oscars was restored on Saturday afternoon. The error message has prompted speculation that the platform may be experiencing a bug of some kind.

By the way – in 2014 Ellen Degeneres posted a selfie from the Oscars and it became the most retweeted photo of all time. That photo is now gone from Twitter. https://t.co/fbH11wzbDV

— Tom Coates (@tomcoates) August 19, 2023

Another discovery included an old tweet still visible from President Barack Obama’s account that was posted in 2012 after the reelection. The image shows the former U.S. president embracing his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, with a tight hug, after winning his 2012 campaign for reelection. As previously reported by BLACK ENTERPRISE, Obama’s victory post became the most retweeted tweet in Twitter history in 2012.

Four more years. pic.twitter.com/bAJE6Vom

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 7, 2012

Reportedly, the errors could possibly be linked to the updates to the platform made in 2016 that added “enhanced URL enrichment.” The previous changes introduced” ‘native attachments’ where a trailing shared link is not counted against the 140 Tweet character limit.”

“In March 2012, the expanded URL enrichment was introduced. Before this time, the Tweet payloads included only the URL provided by the user. So, if the user included a shortened URL, it can be challenging to match on (expanded) URLs of interest,” as stated by the X Developer Platform Data Dictionary.

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