X/Twitter removes key information about links because Elon Musk thinks it looks better

Change came directly from CEO in an attempt to improve look of the site, Musk previously said

Germany Musk ((c) dpa-Zentralbild POOL)

Elon Musk has stopped X, formerly Twitter, from showing information about links posted to the site.

Until the last day, when someone posted a link on X, it showed as an image and the article’s headline, allowing people to see what they would be reading when they clicked.

Now, however, that description has been removed. Instead, the article shows up as a normal picture, with the name of the website showing up small in the corner to show that it is a link.

The update prompted confusion from many readers, who said that it was unclear whether a post included a link and what that might be a link to. Many news organisations publicly complained that it had forced them to change their strategy for posting on the site, given they could previously depend on Twitter to show the headline of posts.

Many tweets that had included links and were posted before the change instantly became incomprehensible, since they had been written to respond to the headline that had pulled through from the article.

Mr Musk has said that he ordered the change to improve the site. When the update was first rumoured, in a Forbes report in August, he responded by saying that it was “coming from me directly” and that it will “greatly improve the esthetics”.

But it may also be an attempt to encourage users to stay on the site for longer, rather than clicking away to links. Since Mr Musk took over Twitter around a year ago, he has often focused on increasing the amount of time that users spend in its feed.

“Our algorithm tries to optimize time spent on X, so links don’t get as much attention, because there is less time spent if people click away,” Mr Musk wrote in a recent tweet. “Best thing is to post content in long form on this platform.”

It is also one of a range of recent decisions that looks to put Mr Musk in conflict with news sites.

Earlier this year, for instance, X appeared to have added a delay when users clicked on some news sites and other rivals such as Instagram and Blue Sky. Users found that pages would not load for five seconds.