X was inaccessible to tens of thousands of users on the morning of Jan. 15, with Downdetector logging more than 62,000 problem reports as of 10 a.m. ET. About 56% of the reports involved the mobile app, and outages were concentrated in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and Houston. A separate brief outage on Jan. 13 affected roughly 24,000 users but was resolved within about 40 minutes. The cause of the Jan. 15 disruption is unclear; recent Cloudflare incidents that affected multiple platforms are being considered while investigators look into the issue.
X Widespread Outage: 62,000+ Users Report Losing Access; Mobile App Most Affected
X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, was inaccessible for tens of thousands of users on the morning of Friday, Jan. 15, according to real-time outage tracker Downdetector.
What Happened
Downdetector recorded more than 62,000 user reports of problems accessing X as of 10 a.m. ET on Jan. 15. About 56% of reports were tied to the mobile app, suggesting the disruption disproportionately affected smartphone users.
Where The Outage Was Concentrated
Reports came from across the United States, with the largest concentrations in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and Houston, Downdetector said.
Recent Related Incidents
This issue followed a shorter outage earlier in the week: on Tuesday, Jan. 13, Downdetector logged roughly 24,000 affected users. That incident began around 9:20 a.m. ET and was resolved by about 10 a.m. ET.
It is not yet clear what caused the Jan. 15 disruption. In recent months, the platform experienced problems tied to internet infrastructure provider Cloudflare, when outages in November and December disrupted multiple services — including X, LinkedIn, Fortnite and DoorDash. Those incidents have led observers to watch infrastructure providers closely when widespread outages occur.
Note: Downdetector aggregates user-submitted reports in real time; its totals reflect where users are reporting problems, not an official outage declaration from X.
Response
USA TODAY has contacted X for comment and will update this story with any response or further details about the cause and scope of the outage.
Contributors: Melina Khan and Greta Cross, USA TODAY.
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