Elon Musk‘s social media platform X (formerly Twitter) is planning to start removing headlines from news articles. Under the new changes, articles will appear on users’ timelines with just a headline and URL, while individuals will have to add their own description above the post.
According to a report by Fortune, X wants users to write a more ‘engaging post’ by removing the headline and other context from the post. The report also noted that the new change is being directly pushed for by X owner Elon Musk.
Replying to a post by X News Daily, Musk confirmed the recent report. He wrote, “This is coming from me directly. Will greatly improve the esthetics.”
Why is Elon Musk removing headlines from news articles?
The Fortune report, citing sources, notes that Musk believes that articles take up too much space on a user’s timeline, and with the new change, X will be able to reduce the height of tweets, allowing more posts to fit on the same timeline while helping to curb clickbait.
Until now, a new article appeared as a ‘card’ on a user’s timeline, consisting of an image, a short headline and a description. The format was developed when the tweet limit was set at 140 characters, and as the information within the card was excluded from the character limit, it became an important way of sharing information on Twitter.
However, as Twitter/X already allows Blue subscribers to write tweets of up to 25,000 characters, the company may want journalists and media houses to pay to promote their articles on the social media platform.
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Updated: 22 Aug 2023, 03:10 PM IST