X users in Pakistan report surge in problems, Downdetector shows

KARACHI: Users of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, reported a sharp rise in service disruptions across Pakistan on Saturday, according to data compiled by monitoring site Downdetector.

At its peak, the number of complaints logged on Downdetector reached 366 at 5:48pm, higher than the platform’s usual baseline of user-reported issues.

The majority of the problems related to the app’s functionality (47 per cent), followed by login failures (27 per cent) and feed-related disruptions (26 per cent).

In the wake of the disruption, Elon Musk, who owns X, posted on the platform that he is “back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms,” stressing his renewed focus on X, xAI, and Tesla. He also noted preparations for a Starship launch next week and the rollout of several “critical technologies”.

Downdetector, which aggregates user-submitted problem reports rather than confirming outages through direct technical analysis, displayed dense clusters of complaints on its real-time outage map -- suggesting widespread difficulty accessing the platform.

Disruptions were not limited to Pakistan. According to Reuters, tens of thousands of users in the US were affected by the outage. At its peak around 8:51am ET (1251 GMT), there were more than 25,800 incidents of people reporting issues with the social media platform.

Thousands of users in other countries, such as Germany, Spain, France, India, Canada, Australia and Britain, also experienced issues with accessing the social media platform at the height of the outage, reported Reuters.