The microblogging site formerly known as Twitter, which became famous on a wave of 140-character Tweets, seeks to remove headlines and descriptive information from links shared on the service. Instead of sharing the headline and featured image associated with a link the service will now show the image.
This change is spearheaded by Twitter/X's owner aboard Elon "Pedo Guy" Musk and is being made regardless of the advertisers who told Musk they don't like it. Musk has successfully reduced advertising revenue at his new website and seems intent on chasing away all but those willing to stand next to outrageous and disgusting content.
The change means that anyone sharing a link on X—from individual users to publishers—would need to manually add their own text alongside the links they share on the service; otherwise the tweet will display only an image with no context other than an overlay of the URL. While clicking on the image will still lead to the full article on the publisher's website, the change could have major implications for publishers who rely on social media to drive traffic to their sites as well as for advertisers.
According to a source with knowledge of the matter, the change is indeed being pushed directly by X owner Elon Musk. The primary objective appears to be to reduce the height of tweets, thus allowing more posts to fit within the portion of the timeline that appears on screen. Musk also believes the change will help curb clickbait, the source said.
"It's something Elon wants. They were running it by advertisers, who didn't like it, but it's happening," the source said, adding that Musk thinks articles occupy excessive space on the timeline. The platform is known for its ongoing challenge in retaining advertisers, a problem that X Corp. CEO Linda Yaccarino has been dedicated to resolving over the past eight weeks.
Thank goodness for Linda Yaccarino.
