Elon Musk Admits X Is Making It Harder for People to Read News
Elon Musk admitted that X (formerly Twitter) is throttling link-based posts, essentially stifling news articles on the social media platform.
In a reply to a post Sunday from technology investor and writer Paul Graham, Musk confirmed that X’s algorithm deprioritizes links, telling him to “just write a description in the main post and put the link in the reply. This just stops lazy linking.”
Graham was not convinced, replying, “If I write a new essay and tweet a link to it, that’s ‘lazy linking,’ but if I tweet that I’ve written a new essay and then put the link in a reply, that’s somehow better?”
Musk didn’t reply to Graham, and later retweeted a post from user DogeDesigner explaining the change. A host of replies from other users to Musk’s reply, as well as Graham’s post, showed that this change is disliked by many X users, particularly in the technology and programming fields that Musk and Graham are a part of.
The fact that Musk replied at all is due to Graham’s standing in the venture capital and tech world (and probably his 1.2 million followers). Musk routinely ignores journalists, particularly critics, on X in favor of his fans and other right-wing accounts. He has frequently disparaged mainstream or “legacy” media outlets in favor of unverified accounts on X, and proudly spreads misinformation on the platform as long as it serves his worldview and political ends.
At times, Musk has shown favoritism on the platform and banned journalists on X when they run afoul of his beliefs, making his claims of being a free speech advocate look hypocritical. Several news outlets, such as NPR, The Guardian, and Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia have all quit X amid increased criticism from European officials.
Whether it’s due to Musk’s disdain for media outlets that criticize him or an attempt to keep users from browsing away from X, the tech CEO’s deprioritization of links has not only ruined the utility of a platform once prized for making it easy to follow news sources but has also increased the spreading of false information. It’s little wonder that competitors such as Bluesky, itself created by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, have grown exponentially since Donald Trump’s election.