X hit by second major global outage in a month

Monday 16 February 2026 - 15:00

By: Dakir Madiha

X hit by second major global outage in a month

Elon Musk’s social media platform X experienced a widespread outage on Monday, with thousands of users in the United States, the United Kingdom and India reporting they were unable to load their feeds or publish posts. The disruption began around 8:02 a.m. Eastern Time, or 13:02 GMT, marking the second significant service interruption to affect the platform formerly known as Twitter within a month.

Data from outage tracking website Downdetector showed a sharp spike in reports shortly after the disruption began. By 8:24 a.m. Eastern Time, more than 23,000 users in the United States had flagged issues with the platform, according to figures cited by Reuters. In the United Kingdom, reports surpassed 3,300 during the same period. Users in India began logging complaints around 7:00 p.m. local time, according to India TV News.

People attempting to access X encountered blank screens, posts that would not load and difficulties refreshing timelines on both the mobile application and desktop versions, according to The Independent. Some users reported seeing only the platform’s “X” logo without any content loading beneath it, while others cited login failures and malfunctioning notifications.

X did not immediately respond to requests for comment regarding the cause of the outage, Reuters reported. Unlike many major technology platforms, X does not provide a public facing status page for general users, leaving those affected to rely on third party monitoring services for real time updates.

Monday’s disruption follows a string of technical problems that have affected the platform in recent months. On January 16, X experienced a more severe outage, with more than 62,000 users in the United States reporting problems at its peak, according to Downdetector data cited by multiple media outlets. That incident lasted roughly 90 minutes before services were restored.

A separate outage on January 22 briefly impacted thousands of users globally, with reports rising above 6,300 within minutes, according to Variety. Another disruption on February 1 affected approximately 19,000 users in the United States for about 45 minutes.

The repeated service interruptions have raised renewed questions about the technical reliability of X following workforce reductions implemented after Musk’s acquisition of the company. The platform continues to face infrastructure challenges while navigating ongoing scrutiny over its content moderation policies.