Links to news outlets, competing sites delayed on X; issue fixed

X added at least a five-second delay to certain news outlets and social media sites this week.

The sites affected were The New York Times, Reuters and other news outlets, as well as social media sites such as Blue Sky.

All sites that reported delays on their links have since reported little or no holdup. 

The delay affected the t.co domain, a link that X uses to track and control most traffic on its site. Among sites working with little or no delay were Fox News, The Washington Post and Mastadon. 

The delay was first reported by The Post. Many noticed that the links affected were rivals of X, formerly known as Twitter, or publications that have been critical of X owner Elon Musk. 

One of the sites, Substack, has feuded with Mr. Musk, who this year said Substack Notes was copying Twitter and marked links to Substack as “unsafe.”