Illustration: The Verge
X, formerly Twitter, is no longer showing headlines on articles shared on the platform. Instead, X is only showing the article’s lead image and the domain it will link you to.
You can see the differences between the new version of link previews in the X iOS app and the old version on the web in this comparison image I stitched together:
Screenshots by Jay Peters / The Verge
Screenshots comparing the new X link previews on iOS (left) and the old versions on mobile Safari (right).
I also made a post on X to demonstrate what’s going on.
Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge
A screenshot of my post on X on iOS. There’s no headline under the image, but there is a small text box indicating that interacting with the image will take you to The Verge.
After I first published this article, I also saw the new format on the web.
Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge
A screenshot of my post on X on the web.
This change, while very annoying, doesn’t come as a total surprise. Fortune reported in August that this change was in the works, and X owner Elon Musk confirmed that the switchover was “coming from me directly” and would “greatly improve the esthetics [sic].” I don’t have an Android device to test with, but if the change hasn’t already appeared on the Android version of the app, I’d guess it will show up there eventually.
Musk has recently been encouraging users to post more content to X directly in an effort to help boost engagement on the platform (and perhaps also because he “almost never” reads “legacy news anymore”). He’s also said that the platform’s algorithm “tries to optimize time spent on X,” meaning that “links don’t get as much attention” and that the “best thing is to post content in long form on this platform.”
In my opinion, removing headlines makes X harder to use — posts are less easy to parse at a glance — so I’m not sure if this change is going to lead to people posting more often like Musk hopes.
Update October 5th, 1:02AM ET: The change has appeared on the web, too.