Elon Musk is once again making waves in the tech world, this time with a new concept to improve the user experience on X, formerly known as Twitter.
As reported by Fortune and later confirmed by Musk himself, his idea involves altering the presentation of news article links on the platform.
Currently, news articles are displayed in the form of “Cards,” containing an image, a headline, a link, and a summary of the article. These Cards don’t count towards X’s character limits, allowing for more content within a post. However, Musk’s proposal is to strip the links to news articles from the text, leaving only the lead image and the URL as direct links to the articles.
This change doesn’t completely eliminate context. Users sharing news articles can provide additional information in the tweet itself, although it remains to be seen how widely this practice will be adopted.
Musk’s rationale behind this shift, according to the publisher’s reports, is to optimize the size of news posts and create space for more content in users’ timelines, thus improving the overall user experience (Musk himself mentioned that it will “greatly improve the aesthetics”). Musk has also extended an invitation to journalists to publish content “directly” on X, a move that could potentially lead to compensation through Twitter’s ad revenue sharing model, contingent on Twitter Blue subscriptions.
This development comes on the heels of reports indicating that X has begun to limit traffic to competing platforms and specific news outlets, including Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and The New York Times.
Despite encountering resistance from advertisers who reportedly “didn’t like it,” Musk remains steadfast in his commitment to the idea. The implementation seems to be underway, as X’s mobile version has introduced overlaying URL links over news article images. Additionally, short descriptions of articles have been removed, while headlines remain prominent.
Elon Musk’s proposal could potentially reshape how news sharing occurs on X, highlighting his ongoing dedication to innovation and enhancing user engagement.
