X, the social network previously known as Twitter, on January 3 brought back headlines to posts containing links on the platform, reversing the company's decision to remove them in October 2023.
Following this update, the link previews on the platform now display the article's headline as white text on a black box overlaid on its feature image, albeit in a small font size at the bottom. That said, we observed that as screen sizes become narrower, the displayed headline gets shorter, cut off with an ellipses.
This essentially means that posts with links display a longer headline on the desktop website, however, it gets cut off after a few words on the mobile website. The website URL has also now been moved to a separate line between the link preview and the buttons for reply, repost, and like functions.
It's worth noting that X's Android app never stopped showing headlines in their original format, and it still displays them in the same way.
X stopped showing headlines in link previews shared on the platform in early October 2023, a few months after X owner Elon Musk had stated plans to do so, saying the change would “greatly improve the esthetics,”.
This changed how news links appear on the platform, with the links becoming hidden in the lead image of the article, making it harder for users to figure out where the links would take them to. One had to tap on the URL overlaid on the image to read the headline. This resulted in some publications and users including the headline in the image preview of the article on the platform.
Musk has previously said the company's algorithm tries to optimise time spent on X, hence links "don’t get as much attention, because there is less time spent if people click away". He has also been encouraging people to post content directly onto the platform in an effort to drive more engagement on the platform.
However, in November 2023, Musk said that they will bring back headlines to links shared on the platform.
This development comes as X faces yet another valuation markdown from one of its investors, Fidelity. The mutual fund giant, which invested over $300 million as part of Musk's $44 billion takeover in October 2022, believes that the social media firm is now worth 71.5 percent less than at the time of purchase, as per new SEC disclosures, first reported by Axios.
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