Elon Musk’s X to Strip Headlines from Links to News Articles
Elon Musk is pushing to change how news links appear on his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, which could hurt news publishers’ ability to attract audiences.
X plans to remove the headline and text, but keep only the main image for news articles shared on the platform, Musk said late Monday.
The move is likely Musk’s attempt to get users to spend more time with X and force them to opt for a subscription service to learn more.
It’s not immediately clear how the change will affect advertisers on the platform, which Musk claimed in July had 540 million monthly users.
Currently, news links appear on users’ timelines as “cards” with an image, source address, and abbreviated title. This kind of packaging helps to collect clicks and helps publishers get readers.
But with shortened links, users might end up writing text along with their posts, and eventually they might consider X’s premium service, which allows for a single post of up to 25,000 characters.
With the changes, Musk presents X as a more relevant platform for content creators. Premium subscribers can now post longer videos, their posts appear higher, and they also get a cut of ad sales.
