(Paris) – Links and newspaper articles shared on the X platform now appear only in the form of an image, without a title or description, a disappearance that Elon Musk justified for “aesthetic” reasons, AFP reported Thursday.
The general change in the interface between October 3 and 4 was already spotted by some media during the testing phase in mid-August.
Elon Musk then posited: “This is coming directly from me. “The aesthetics of (the social network) will be dramatically improved,” he wrote.
When a user shares a newspaper article, only the name of the media that published it continues to appear in the lower left corner of the pictogram, and clicking on the image allows access to the content.
Elon Musk, who bought the social network last year, is trying to stem the decline in advertising revenue by encouraging users to spend more time on the platform, and thus share fewer external links.
The billionaire who heads Tesla and Starlink is also accused of taking a hostile stance towards the media, with many of them announcing their withdrawal from the platform.
On October 3, Elon Musk said he “almost never consults the traditional press. What’s the point of reading 1,000 words about something that was already shared on X a few days ago?”
In September, the European Commission revealed a study showing that platform and the disinformation in its publications.
This summer, Agence France-Presse and three French journalism groups also represented Twitter before French courts, who want information that would allow them to negotiate remuneration for the use of their content, including in the form of excerpts.
“Music guru. Incurable web practitioner. Thinker. Lifelong zombie junkie. Tv buff. Typical organizer. Evil beer scholar.”
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