Access to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) was gradually restored in Pakistan on May 24, following a global outage that disrupted services for users in multiple countries.
In a statement, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) confirmed that the disruption was part of a broader international issue and followed a similar global outage on May 22, which lasted several hours. PTA clarified that no technical faults were found at Pakistan’s internet gateways and that all other internet services across the country remained fully operational.
Global internet observatory NetBlocks also confirmed that the disruptions to X are global in nature and not linked to any country-specific internet restrictions or filtering.
The May 24 disruption impacted both web and mobile versions of the platform. Users in Pakistan reported difficulties logging in and posting content. According to outage-tracking service Downdetector, complaints began shortly after 5pm, peaking at 5:36pm with 372 reports. Over 600 complaints were logged by late evening. A sharp decline in reports by 8pm indicated that service was being gradually restored.
X’s engineering team attributed the disruption to an earlier data centre issue. “We’re still experiencing issues from yesterday’s data centre outage. Login and signup services are unavailable for some users, and there may be delays in notifications and Premium features,” the platform stated.
Technology publication Wired reported that a fire broke out on May 22 at a data centre used by X in the Hillsboro Technology Park. Emergency responders found heavy smoke in a battery room, through the fire was contained and did not spread to other parts of the facility.
In Pakistan, the latest disruption follows a months-long ban on the platform imposed on February 17, 2024, amid election-related controversies. Access was quietly reinstated on May 7.
