Elon Musk is advocating for a transformation in how news links are displayed on his social media platform X, previously known as Twitter. This initiative could challenge news publishers’ capacity to attract and retain audiences.
In a post on Monday, Musk announced that X intends to eliminate the headline and text from news article links, leaving only the lead image visible when shared on the platform.
This is coming from me directly. Will greatly improve the esthetics.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 22, 2023
This change appears to be a strategy by Musk to encourage users to engage more with X and perhaps to entice them towards a subscription service that offers additional features.
The immediate ramifications for advertisers on the platform remain uncertain, although Musk previously stated that X boasts 540 million monthly users as of July.
At present, news links are displayed in users’ timelines as “cards,” which include an image, source URL, and a brief headline. This format aids in generating clicks and helps publishers to attract readership.
With the proposed changes, users may resort to adding their own text to posts and could eventually be drawn to X’s premium service that allows for a single post of up to 25,000 characters.
Musk described X’s modifications as positioning the platform as more appealing to content creators. Premium subscribers benefit from the ability to post longer videos, have their content prioritized, and receive a share of ad revenues.
Additionally, Musk recently disclosed intentions to phase out the ‘block’ feature, which allows users to prevent specific accounts from interacting with them or following their content. However, he noted that users will still retain the ability to block accounts in direct messages.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
