Musk Now Targets Media Too... Plans to Reduce News Content on X

Remove Article Headlines and Text, Share Images Only
"News Reduction, Increasing X Content Usage Time" Interpretation
"Suspicions of Avoiding Revenue Sharing with Media Companies"

Social networking service X (formerly Twitter) is considering a plan to display only images without headlines and text when sharing news article links.

"Aesthetically More Beautiful" X to Share News with Images Only

Elon Musk, CEO of American electric vehicle company Tesla and space exploration company SpaceX
[Photo by Yonhap News]

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and owner of X, announced on his X account on the 22nd (local time) that "the platform plans to leave only the first image of news articles appearing on X and remove the headlines and article text."

Musk claimed that this change would "make X aesthetically more beautiful." He is known to have thought that news articles take up too much space on the X timeline.

Until now, news articles posted on X have been displayed on the timeline in card form, including images, headlines, brief text, and links.

This helped news providers attract readers by encouraging users to click on the articles.

However, if headlines and article text disappear, the space occupied by news articles will be reduced, and they will fail to attract users' attention.

Users will also face inconvenience when sharing news, as they will need to add text themselves, which is likely to result in fewer news shares.

Musk said, "If the media want to write more freely and earn more revenue, they should post news directly on X."

Foreign media criticized this as "another measure complicating the efforts of news organizations to drive traffic through X's content."

Analysis Suggests Aim to Keep Users Longer on X, Encourage Subscriptions, and Avoid Paying for News Content

The original Twitter blue bird logo (left) and the current X logo (right). [Photo by Reuters·Yonhap News]

There are reasons beyond aesthetics for X to implement this change. It is to increase the time users spend on X.

Reducing the area occupied by news content on the screen allows more X content posts to be displayed on one screen.

Also, as news fails to engage users' interest, the number of clicks on news links decreases, which means users spend more time on X content.

This may be intended to encourage users to spend more time on X and choose subscription services to learn more details or use X more conveniently.

Some also analyze that Musk's attempt to reduce the proportion of news content is related to the recent lawsuit filed by the French news agency AFP against X.

On the 3rd, AFP filed a copyright lawsuit in a French court, claiming that X has not provided the necessary data to set appropriate fees for news content.

AFP argues that "the value generated through news sharing should be fairly distributed," and there are suspicions that X is not only withholding related data to avoid this but also trying to eliminate news on X.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.