Elon Musk to Strip Headlines Off News Links on X – The social media platform X, previously recognized as Twitter, is preparing to modify the appearance of news links on its platform. This recent alteration, led by owner Elon Musk, will have an effect on news publishers using the site. The news was first reported by Fortune on Monday and confirmed in a post from Musk later in the day: “This is coming from me directly. Will greatly improve the esthetics [sic],”he wrote.
The platform will no longer display headlines and other text from news links and show only the main image, limiting a user’s ability to see the contents before clicking. At present, news links are displayed on users’ timelines as “cards,” featuring an image, source URL, and a shortened headline. This presentation effectively attracts clicks and enables publishers to increase their readership.
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This action could potentially encourage users to subscribe to X’s premium service, as the condensed links might prompt them to add more text to their posts. This premium service permits a single post containing up to 25,000 characters. The potential effects on advertisers using the platform remain unclear, despite Musk’s statement in July that the platform had 540 million monthly users.
With these modifications, Musk is positioning X as a more pertinent platform for content creators. Subscribers of the premium service can now upload longer videos, have their posts prioritized, and also receive a share of ad revenues. Since taking over as owner in October 2022, Musk has implemented numerous sudden changes to Twitter.
Many of these changes have had negative repercussions on the news media, a significant segment of its user base. The billionaire has suspended journalists from the platform, revoked verification from numerous media personalities, and attempted to initiate his own journalistic projects, including the “Twitter Files,” where reporters publish “investigations” directly on the platform.
“If you’re a journalist who wants more freedom to write and a higher income, then publish directly on this platform!” he posted this week. Following his acquisition of the platform formerly referred to as Twitter, Musk significantly downsized its public relations department and ceased to engage with media inquiries from journalists. In the past, requests for comments were met with a poop emoji.
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