Elon Musk’s X to hide headlines from news articles’ links.
Elon Musk, the tech tycoon, announced Tuesday that X, formerly Twitter, will modify the way news links appear on the social media network, which may make it tougher for news organisations to attract audiences.
Musk said in a post late Monday that X intends to remove the headline and text from links to news stories shared on the platform, leaving only the primary image.
According to Reuters, Musk’s move is likely a ploy to entice users to spend more time on X and push them to subscribe to the subscription service for additional details.
It is unclear how the move will affect advertisers on the network, which Musk claimed had 540 million monthly users in July.
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As Elon Musk’s X to hide headlines from news articles’ links, currently, news links appear as “cards” on users’ timelines, accompanied with an image, source address, and a shortened headline. Such packaging encourages clicks and assists publishers in gaining readers.
However, with the shorter links, users may wind up writing some text alongside their messages, and they may eventually contemplate X’s premium service, which allows for a single post of up to 25,000 characters.
Musk is positioning X as a more relevant platform for content creators with the modifications.
Premium subscribers can now post longer videos, have their postings displayed higher in the feed, and receive a percentage of ad revenues.
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
Elon Reeve Musk is a business magnate and investor. Musk is the founder, chairman, CEO and chief technology officer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO, product architect and former chairman of Tesla, Inc.; owner, chairman and CTO of X Corp.; founder of the Boring Company; co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI; and president of the Musk Foundation.
