“Elon Musk’s Platform X (Formerly Twitter) Strategizes Headline Removal from News Articles to Foster Engaging Content. Musk Advocates Journalists’ Direct Publishing for Enhanced Earnings, With Intent to Trim Tweet Length and Combat Clickbait.”
Platform X, previously known as Twitter, is embarking on a significant change that involves the removal of headlines from news articles. In this new paradigm, articles will be featured on users’ timelines solely with a headline and a URL, prompting individuals to provide their own introductory descriptions for the post.
A recent report by Fortune highlights that X is striving to encourage users to craft more engaging posts by eliminating headlines and other contextual information. It is worth noting that this change is a direct initiative driven by Elon Musk, the owner of X.
Musk himself confirmed the recent report in response to a post by X News Daily. He stated, “This is coming from me directly. Will greatly improve the aesthetics.”
In an intriguing twist, Musk extended an invitation to journalists, urging them to publish directly on the X platform for the prospect of increased income. He posted, “If you’re a journalist who wants more freedom to write and a higher income, then publish directly on this platform!”
The rationale behind Elon Musk’s decision to remove headlines from news articles stems from his belief that articles occupy excessive space on a user’s timeline. With this modification, X aims to reduce the vertical space occupied by tweets, facilitating the accommodation of more posts within the same timeline while combatting clickbait.
Until now, a new article typically appeared as a ‘card’ on a user’s timeline, comprising an image, a concise headline, and a description. This format evolved when Twitter/X had a character limit of 140, with information in the card exempt from this limit, making it a vital means of sharing information on the platform.
However, with Twitter/X now granting Blue subscribers the capacity to compose tweets of up to 25,000 characters, the company may be positioning itself to encourage journalists and media organizations to invest in promoting their articles on the social media platform.