Tesla CEO Elon Musk is planning to kill headlines from news articles that are shared on his X platform, formerly known as Twitter. Users will now have no text or headline to provide context to the links added to tweets, which may make some people think twice about clicking.
Twitter/X will soon implement a major change in how articles appear on the social media platform, stripping out the headline and other text so that posts with links will only display an article’s lead image, without any other context on the URL, according to material obtained by Fortune.
Elon Musk looks puzzled (Anadolu Agency/Getty)
The company reportedly wants to make tweets smaller so it can feature more content on a single feed page. Musk also believes the new look will “will greatly improve the esthetics.”
Currently, articles posted to the social media platform display a headline and a short description of the content in the piece. This extra context doesn’t count as characters in a tweet, so this has long been the method to include more information without eating up valuable space.
The move to do away with this feature will force users to manually type the headline and description in each post. Websites that continuously post their articles can also complete this task with a bot. Other users, however, may need to utilize more time and effort in order to describe every news piece they are posting. It may also enable tricksters to type in a headline and description for a link that goes to an entirely different article.
On Monday, Musk expressed his desire to have “journalists” report exclusively on his app.
“If you’re a journalist who wants more freedom to write and a higher income, then publish directly on this platform!” the SpaceX CEO declared.
If you’re a journalist who wants more freedom to write and a higher income, then publish directly on this platform!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 21, 2023
An account known as X News Daily also took to the platform on Monday, announcing, “X is changing how news links show up on the timeline. It will strip out the headline/text so links display only an article’s lead image.”
NEWS: X is changing how news links show up on the timeline.
It will strip out the headline/text so links display only an article’s lead image. pic.twitter.com/yseGs58i3Z
— X News Daily (@xDaily) August 22, 2023
Additionally, Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino reportedly said in a recent interview that the plan for X is to have users subscribe to their favorite creators producing “video and articles” while making a “real living” off Musk’s platform.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.