Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, has shared plans to eliminate headlines and accompanying text from news article posts that feature a primary image on the platform.
According to a report by Fortune on Monday, this modification would require users, whether individuals or publishers, to manually insert their own text when sharing posts and links. Otherwise, the content would solely exhibit an image with a superimposed URL, lacking context.
According to a source cited by Fortune, Musk is driving this change to reduce post height, enabling more posts to fit within the visible portion of the timeline. According to Musk, this change is aimed at addressing the issue of clickbait on the platform.
Despite resistance from advertisers, Musk is determined to implement this modification, as news articles currently occupy a significant amount of space on the platform.
Musk, who acquired the platform in October of the previous year, acknowledged this shift in response to a user’s post on the topic. Musk conveyed, “This is coming directly from me. It will greatly enhance aesthetics.”
This transition follows several months after Musk announced the rebranding of the social media platform, previously known as Twitter, to X. In recent months, X has undergone numerous changes, including restricting the number of direct messages users can send and the quantity of tweets they can view.
In addition, Musk declared plans last week to eliminate the option to block individual accounts, later clarifying that users would retain the ability to mute accounts and block others in direct messaging.