Musk Blasted For Plan to Remove Headlines From News Articles: ‘Wants to Replace Journalists With News Performers’
Sipa via AP Images
Elon Musk confirmed early Tuesday morning he is indeed pushing a plan to remove headlines from links to news articles posted to Twitter, now known as X.
“This is coming from me directly. Will greatly improve the esthetics,” Musk wrote on Twitter in reply to a tweet explaining the change. Fortune’s Kylie Robison first broke the news of the change to the platform on Monday night.
Robison explained, “Scoop: X/Twitter, is planning a major change in how news articles appear on the service, stripping out the headline and other text so that tweets with links display only an article’s lead image, according to material viewed by Fortune.”
The news of the change resulted in an immediate bevy of criticism against Musk, who has been accused of leading derailing the social media company with erratic and seemingly spontaneous decisions. In recent days, Musk has even been accused of throttling access to news reports from outlets viewed as critical of the billionaire by slowing down how quickly their pages load on his platform.
Many critics view his latest planned change to the platform as another attack on journalism. “Musk is making it harder to make *news* to go viral. Bullshit can go viral but actual reporting with editorial standards, forget it. He wants to replace journalists with news performers like Ian Miles Cheong, Andy Ngo, and Tim Pool,” wrote Michael Edison Hayden of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
https://twitter.com/MichaelEHayden/status/1693815359533408765
“Musk is terrified of….well, everything,” wrote the Atlantic’s Tom Nichols in response.
Fox Business reported on the change with a headline that read, “Elon Musk sticks journalists in the eye with latest X change that will have major impact on newsrooms.”
“This isn’t small. This is disastrous for journalism, particularly independent journalism, which means democracy,” argued author Jeff Sharlet.
Below are some more responses to Musk’s plan:
https://twitter.com/JonLemire/status/1693949773022200247
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