X, formerly Twitter, no longer shows headlines on articles shared on the platform. As a result, X only displays the article’s lead image and the domain it will link to.
A journalist at The Verge noticed this change on X. When you try to post a link on the X iPhone app, you only see an image instead of the article’s headline. To see what changed, the journalist stitched together screenshots comparing the old version on a phone’s web browser to the new version in the X app.
The journalist also made a test post on X from his iPhone. Under the image, a small text box showed the site as “The Verge” but no headline. He later saw the same format without headlines on the web version of X too.
This adjustment is annoying, but not surprising. Reports said X owner Elon Musk planned the switch to “greatly improve the aesthetics.” Musk wants users to post more original content directly to X instead of just links. He says the algorithm aims to maximize time spent on X, so links don’t get as much attention.
In the journalist’s opinion, removing headlines makes X harder to use since you can’t glance at posts to understand them. It’s unclear if this will really lead to more posts as Musk hopes.
So in summary, X headlines are gone. This was done to change the look according to Musk, but readers may find the platform less easy to grasp without titles showing what links are about. Only time will tell if it has Musk’s desired effect.
