Twitter / X will bring back link headline previews, says Elon Musk

Twitter / X owner Elon Musk has announced the platform will reinstate headlines to link previews for articles. Musk removed automatic article headlines and their subheader text last month because he didn’t like how they looked.

“In an upcoming release, X will overlay title in the upper potion [sic] of the image of a URL card,” Musk posted to his Twitter / X account on Wednesday.

Tweet may have been deleted

The announcement came less than two hours after Musk himself inadvertently demonstrated how the removal of Twitter / X’s headline previews has severely reduced the platform’s functionality. Sharing a Reuters article about OpenAI, the beleaguered billionaire simply stated that it was “Extremely concerning!” — a statement rendered nonsensical without the link’s context.

It’s unclear whether this or Musk’s other such unintelligible link posts are related to his decision to bring back article headlines. Considering his history of changing things at Twitter / X on a whim, it can’t be entirely ruled out.

Twitter / X users immediately began roasting Musk for returning a feature many felt he never should have arbitrarily removed in the first place.

Tweet may have been deleted

Tweet may have been deleted

In response, Musk was quick to insist that his headline previews will be different from the previous headline previews, as they will appear on the article’s image rather than below it.

“[T]he title will be in the image overlaid at the top, with URL overlaid at the bottom, as it is now – no extra vertical pixels used,” wrote Musk. “I hate those giant, ugly URL cards.”

Tweet may have been deleted

Of course, one might argue that if Musk had wanted to redesign Twitter / X’s headline previews, it would have made a lot more sense to just do so in the first place rather than completely eliminate them first. The initial removal of link headlines had a severe negative impact on Twitter / X’s accessibility, making the platform much more difficult to navigate for users of assistive technology.