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ELON MUSK’S SOCIAL media platform X has stripped headlines from news articles shared by users, in a move likely to further worsen relations with media groups.
The tycoon has long railed against the “legacy media” and claims X, formerly Twitter, is a better source of information.
However, he said the latest change was for “aesthetic” reasons – news and other links now appear only as pictures with no accompanying text.
Musk took over Twitter last year in a $44 billion deal and has since renamed it X, sacked thousands of staff and drawn criticism for allowing banned conspiracy theorists and extremists back on the platform, sending advertisers fleeing.
He has also banned – and reinstated – various journalists with mainstream outlets including the Washington Post and CNN, as well as appearing to delay posts from accounts including the New York Times.
Some media groups have stopped posting to X altogether.
AFP and other French news outlets launched a legal case in early August accusing X of copyright breaches.
“I almost never read legacy news anymore,” Musk posted on Tuesday.
“What’s the point of reading 1,000 words about something that was already posted on X several days ago?”
When the changes to links were first mooted in August, he posted: “This is coming from me directly. Will greatly improve the esthetics.”
The most recent changes appear to have been introduced gradually this week.
Instead of seeing a headline along with a picture, users now see only a picture with a small watermark.
Some users have already commented that it is now difficult to distinguish between news and other kinds of information, which is likely to raise questions about the trustworthiness of the site.
In September, the European Commission said X had a higher ratio of misinformation and disinformation than any other social media.
He’s really destroying the site, not that it was great to begin with.
@Ollie McGlinchey:
Anything is an improvement on the woke echo chamber that was Twitter.
@Ollie McGlinchey: Absolutely hopefully he is able to turn it back into a site that is not woke trash. Great he started by clearing out so many wasters doing nothing.
@Tommy Haze: He’s made it the platform of the ‘asleep’ instead.
@Tommy Haze: it will end up as a far right website.
@Ollie McGlinchey: Gone to shite. Timeline full of people and topics you have no interest in and haven’t shown any in with user behaviour, people you’re following getting buried in replies, spam bots even more prolific than they were before. Some can’t wrap their head around using it to have a laugh and interact with people you know and harp on about ‘echo chambers’. Yeah, imagine wanting to see the posts of the people you choose to follow! Not everything is about politics.
@brian madden: What does far right mean Brian?
@B6Tr3OgE: what’s with the anti woke speech? I’m guessing you don’t understand what members of the LBGT+ community go through, and you wonder why some get angry or defensive? Please go back under your rock.
@brian madden: If you have seen Tommy’s comments, that is what he wants.
@Tommy Haze: Asleep is the opposite of Woke. Wake up.
@Mark Porter: no one gave a toss about what the lgbt did until they came for the children. Now they are fair game.
@Tommy Haze: it’s still an echo chamber, it’s just climbed the fence.
Ah yes, I’ll take the word of someone on Twitter with zero editorial oversight or risk of reputational loss as a good source of news instead of organisations that have put multiple controls in place to try and stop lies being shared.
Only took him a year to tank the site. Such a “genius”.
@Tricia G: So you believe everything your told as long as it comes from MSM, That take thick to an impressive level.
@Tricia G: Musk was claiming 5 months ago that Twitter had regained 75% of its advertisers/advertising revenue, in response to an interviewer’s question about drastically declining ad revenue. He was lying (as expected). The actual released information shows little, if any, clawback of the lost ad revenue. The man relies entirely on being a celebrity for credibility. No one this rich could possibly be incompetent is the pretence (like Trump) and Musk sees his celebrity as justification for stirring up all kinds of —- to keep the illusion going (like Trump). Both men had extremely problematic fathers.
@Common Sense: Funny how she didn’t say that at all.
Critical thinking and reviewing multiple sources on an issue is essential, but a reputable outlet that provides sources is going to be a better starting point than ‘@eirejohn191637229′ on Twitter.
Believing everything that is reported in the MSM to be a lie is just as idiotic if not worse than believing something with no evidence just because it came from the MSM, and yet so many are happy to do just that.
@Common Sense: There are degrees of credibility and relative levels of responsibility in news sources (even they are even officially news companies and not ‘entertainment/provocation’). Rush Limbaugh once told his listeners not to trust politicians, academics, scientists or the traditional news sources. The implication is clear. Listen to Rush, who has no qualifications/expertise and who definitely is not selling a product : himself. Anyone who can’t see through tactics that transparent is likely to offer up your by now bog standard reactive response. You said it yourself here.
@Numinous20111:
reuters: “us-ad-revenue-musks-x-declined-each-month-since-takeover-data-2023-10-04/”
@Common Sense: Tricia g didn’t say she believed everything she read. In MSM if I can paraphrase she said she had more faith in it than X
It’s funny that tweets critical of Musk see likes disappear. A famously brittle ego.
Musk will do anything to help the far right.
He ended the one sided maelstrom of nutjobs pushing for a world where only the injected were allowed a voice.
@Common Sense:
And they’re still smarting from having the rug pulled out from under them.
There’s a bitterness there which will linger for the rest of their lives.
@Tommy Haze: It’s really bizarre that you can’t seem to see a use for Twitter outside of a political frame. People have left because what was once a place for having a laugh with people they chose to follow and people interested in similar music, movies etc as them has become almost unusable with the number of spam bots scuttering all over replies, main feed filled with topics they’ve never shown interest in and arguments under tweets as simple as ‘Got pizza in ___ last night, it was lovely’.
Bizarre and miserable, really.
@Common Sense: such an ironic username
@Tom Dillon: He’s not intelligent enough to see or understand the irony in your comment.
@WEU8HjRq:
Build a bridge….
@Tommy Haze: Done long ago. Sorry people remarking that it went to shite when the topic arises upsets you so.
Please stop calling it X formerly known as Twitter
@F2yxfluD: why?
Ask the avg person on the street and they’ll call it twitter still.
If the media calls it x nobody will know what they are on about.
@Martin Bishop: Would you say that if X was a pronoun?
@Oh Mammy: Would you marry your cousin? Just adding to the irrelevant questions.
@F2yxfluD: They haven’t had a chance to use that since the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince told everyone to call him Prince again.
What a waste of billions
@Stevie Doran: The billions haven’t been wasted. They’ve just gone from his bank account to other people’s bank accounts.
@Mick Hyland: Nobody nilfisks a room. Twitter is the new Hoover. Nobody calls it X.
Don’t really see what the issue is? News organisations will have to type in a headline as a “tweet” apposed to just sharing multiple articles from their websites containing a headline.
@Matthew Mc: You don’t have to be a UX designer to see the issue here. It’s a pointless change that only causes confusion, as now the images from links look very similar to regular uploaded photos. It’s not a huge issue, but it is yet another needless decision on Musk’s part.
It’s fascinating in a sense to see just how much he can damage twitter before the masses finally leave. It feels like a big social experiment and so far we’re seeing most people and companies adapt to the nonsense rather than leave.
I’m on the waitlist for Blue Sky…
“X” formerly known as Twitter, previously available on WWW, used to be know as the world wide web, available on broadband, which used to called dial up, it was available on laptops, after PC’s, commonly referred to as personal computers that needed CD ROM’s from AOL or Esat…
Just call it X.
Deleted it only last week, it’s a pit, feeds are full of American political crap, people I interacted with were buried in my feed and 90% of what was on my feed I had no interest in. He’s now looking for a fee? Wally.
@No Here: i deleted it last week also after being on it for 13 years. He has really ruined it.
X formerly known as Twitter just p!$$es me off. You don’t go into a shop and ask for a Snickers bar formerly known as a Marathon bar or a bag of M&M’s formerly known as Minstrels or Treets!!
A total CO CKWOMBLE this lad!
He is slowly but surely turning it into an absolute mess. Completely unnecessary change that only causes confusion.
Given the propensity of “legacy media” to use misleading and sensationalist headlines, not to mention getting half their “facts” from twitter in the first place, there might be some sort of twisted logic at play there.
How long before the banks step in and take over?
Twitter is a growing cesspit since Musk took over. Musk revealing his true colours as true numpty. I hope people are leaving it in droves
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