- The Washington Times - Tuesday, August 22, 2023

News articles will soon have a new look at Elon Musk’s X after the owner announced headlines would be removed from news articles.

Mr. Musk on Monday confirmed headlines would be a thing of the past on X, formerly Twitter.

“This is coming from me directly,” he wrote responding to an article announcing the change. “Will greatly improve aesthetics.”

Under the new format, articles posted on X will show only the piece’s lead image, not the headline or the teaser text that normally appears. If a news outlet wants to have the headline appear, it needs to manually paste it.

On top of hoping to improve the site’s look, Mr. Musk has implied the changes will reduce clutter. If news posts are smaller, the thinking goes, more content can be displayed. He also has said eliminating headlines will “curb clickbait.”

While some fans of Mr. Musk agreed the look of X may improve, others expressed annoyance at the announcement.

“It is disappointing to see another helpful and important feature of a text-based information platform be removed because one guy thinks it looks too cluttered,” user Cody Johnson posted.

There has been no confirmation of when the change will take place.

• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.

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