On February 16, services on social networking platform X were restored after a widespread outage disrupted access for users across multiple continents for nearly two hours. The platform, owned by Elon Musk, failed to display new posts and left many users unable to refresh their feeds before functionality resumed by around 8:30 pm (3:30 pm GMT).

Downdetector, which tracks online service interruptions, recorded a sharp spike in user complaints earlier in the afternoon. In Pakistan, reports of disruption peaked at 6:54 pm, with 275 users flagging issues. The number of complaints declined to eight by 7:54 pm, indicating that services had largely stabilised.

Internet connectivity monitor Netblocks said on the open-source platform Mastodon that X appeared to be experiencing “international outages”. It clarified that the disruption was not related to country-level internet shutdowns or filtering. Journalists in countries including France and Thailand also reported being unable to access the platform during the outage.

Representatives for X did not immediately respond to requests for comment regarding the cause of the disruption before services were restored. Netblocks noted that it had reported similar outages on February 9 and February 1. The platform also experienced disruptions on January 13 and January 16, affecting thousands of users globally.