Elon Musk’s X to hide headlines from news articles’ links — in blow to publishers

Tech mogul Elon Musk Tuesday said that X, formerly Twitter, will change the way news links display on the social media network which may make it difficult for news companies to draw audiences.

X is planning to remove the headline and text while retaining just the lead image from links to news articles shared on the platform, Musk said in a post late on Monday.

The move is likely an attempt by Musk to get users to spend more time on X and push them to opt for the subscription service for more details, reported Reuters.

It is not immediately clear how the move will impact advertisers on the platform that Musk claimed in July had 540 million monthly users.

Currently, news links come up on the timeline of users as “cards” along with an image, source address and an abridged headline. Such packaging helps draw clicks and helps publishers gain readers.

But with the shortened links, users might end up writing some text along with their posts and eventually, they could consider X’s premium service that allows a single post of up to 25,000 characters.

With the changes, Musk is pitching X as a more relevant platform for content creators. Premium subscribers can now post longer videos, their posts are shown higher up and they also receive a cut of ad sales.