According to a Washington Post investigation published on Tuesday, social media giant X, formerly known as Twitter, delayed access to links to content on the websites of competitors Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, Reuters, and the New York Times, as well as those of those organizations.

The Washington Post claimed, citing tests it carried out on Tuesday, that there was a five-second lag after clicking a link on X to one of the impacted websites before the webpage loaded. In tests it conducted, Reuters also noticed a comparable delay.

X appears to have erased the delay by late Tuesday afternoon. X said the delay had been eliminated when contacted for comment, but he gave no other details.

Billionaire Elon Musk, who in October purchased Twitter, has previously reacted angrily to media outlets and reporters who have provided negative coverage of his firms, including Tesla and SpaceX. Prior to this, Twitter had prohibited users from posting links to competitor social media sites.

The exact moment that X started withholding links to select websites was not known to Reuters

An individual who complained about the delay earlier on Tuesday on the tech forum Hacker News claimed that X started delaying links to the New York Times on August 4. On that particular day, Musk criticized the magazine's coverage of South Africa and said it backed demands for genocide. Reuters has no proof that the two incidents are connected.

X has not provided an explanation for the link delay, according to a New York Times representative. On Tuesday, a spokeswoman stated, "While we don't know the reasoning behind the implementation of this time delay. We would be worried by targeted pressure imposed on any journalistic organization for unknown reasons.

According to a Reuters spokeswoman, the Washington Post reported that links to Reuters stories on X were opening slowly. We are conducting an investigation.

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