Access to social media platform X was largely restored on Tuesday after users across multiple regions reported difficulties accessing the service, according to outage tracking website Downdetector. The disruption affected users worldwide and appeared to peak during the morning hours in the United States before gradually easing as services recovered. Reports submitted to Downdetector indicated that the issues were widespread but relatively short lived, with normal access resuming within roughly an hour.
According to Downdetector data, the outage began around 9am Eastern Time, with reports rising rapidly as users encountered problems loading the platform, posting content, or accessing feeds. At its peak, more than 28,300 issues were logged by users in the United States, marking a sharp spike in reported disruptions. Service recovery began shortly after 9:30am Eastern Time, with the number of reports declining quickly. By around 10am Eastern Time, the platform appeared to be fully operational again, with reported issues dropping to approximately 700. Downdetector noted that such figures are based on user submitted reports and may not reflect the exact number of users affected, though they provide a general indication of service impact and recovery trends.
The disruption was not limited to the United States, as users in other regions also reported access issues. In the United Kingdom, outage reports climbed to more than 8,000 at their highest point before falling to around 130 as service stabilized. Canada experienced a similar pattern, with reported issues peaking at over 3,200 earlier in the day before declining as access was restored. Downdetector aggregates reports from a range of sources, including user submissions and network monitoring, meaning actual disruption levels could vary. Despite the scale of reports, X did not immediately issue a public explanation regarding the cause of the outage, and the company did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters at the time of reporting.
The brief outage occurred only days after X owner Elon Musk announced plans to open source the platform’s recommendation algorithm as part of efforts to increase transparency. While no connection has been established between the announcement and the service disruption, the timing drew attention due to ongoing scrutiny of the platform’s technical infrastructure. X has experienced multiple service interruptions in recent months. In November 2025, a Cloudflare outage temporarily prevented users from accessing the platform after a faulty security configuration disrupted traffic routing. That incident was followed by another disruption a few days later that took X offline for thousands of users in the United States. Tuesday’s outage, while shorter in duration, added to a series of technical issues that have periodically affected user access, highlighting the challenges associated with maintaining stability at scale for a platform with a global user base.
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