PARIS, FRANCE – JUNE 16: Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of Twitter, Elon Musk … [+]
Is Elon Musk trying to drive journalists away from X? His latest “improvement” to the platform, unveiled Wednesday, strips away the headlines from news stories posted to the site, making it “borderline useless,” as New York Times
NYT
For journalists like Swan, the social media platform long known as Twitter was a revolution—a remarkably effective tool not just for staying connected (to sources, breaking news and fellow reporters), but also as a way to share your work and grow your audience.
But today, reborn as X under Musk, the platform is increasingly seen as irretrievably broken. As Times tech reporter Mike Issac put it, removing headlines means X users see an image without any context:
In a post on X, Musk explained the change as one he personally ordered. He said it was intended to “improve the esthetics.”
In July, Musk killed off the Twitter name and the social media giant’s iconic bird logo, changing “tweets” to “posts” and signaling a change in strategy for the brand. Musk has said he intends to transform the app from a place where news breaks in real time to an “everything app” where users can find entertainment, shop and manage their finances.
“In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world,” Musk said, leading observers to note that Musk’s description sounds very much like China’s WeChat platform.
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – JULY 24: A worker removes letters from the Twitter sign that is posted … [+]
Musk had previously removed the longstanding verification system that gave journalists blue checks to show that they were verified members of the media, replacing it with a program that sells those blue checks to anyone who pays for the subscription Twitter Blue service. That change sparked a wave of phony accounts claiming to be news organizations, companies and famous persons, making it difficult for users to know which information was trustworthy and which was not:
Journalists have described X as increasingly confusing and chaotic, and noted the rise in hate speech on the platform. In September, the Center for Countering Digital Hate issued a report, accusing X of failing to enforce its own policies on hateful conduct (X sued the nonprofit this year, accusing the CCDH of improperly scraping Twitter data as part of its research).
At the time, CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed said the group did not use data-scraping tools but rather “simply went in and had a look.” The CCDH report identified posts containing antisemitic content, including images of Nazi swastikas, messages supporting Holocaust denial and other posts promoting conspiracy theories related to Jews.
The new (Twitter) logo rebranded as X displayed on mobile with Elon Musk seen in the background, in … [+]
With the removal of headlines, journalists writing about the change were forced to explain to users what the attached story was about in the hopes people would click:
