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Musk admits X throttles links as “news influencers” take over

Evan Vucci

X owner Elon Musk seemed on Monday to confirm what sharp-eyed users have suspected for months: that putting a link in your post on his social network is a good way to ensure it won’t go viral.

Musk was replying to a <a href="https://x.com/paulg/status/1860810383021277424" target=_blank>post</a> by the influential Silicon Valley investor Paul Graham, who opined on Sunday that “the deprioritization of tweets with links in them is Twitter’s biggest flaw.” X’s main draw, Graham said, is “to find out what’s going on, and you can’t do that without links.”

Musk’s <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1860812342210240995" target=_blank>response</a> implied Graham was right that X’s algorithm downgrades link posts.

“Just write a description in the main post and put the link in the reply,” Musk said, mentioning a strategy that some savvy X users were already employing. “This just stops lazy linking.”

It’s another sign that the humble hyperlink – the connective tissue of the open web – has fallen on hard times.

Earlier this century, when first Google and then social networks conquered the attention economy, they left the legacy media and other online publishers a consolation prize: the chance to siphon readers back to their websites via links. The local news outlet might no longer be its readers’ daily portal to the wider world, but at least its grabbiest stories still stood a chance of topping their search results or Facebook feeds. That meant eyeballs and therefore revenue.

Those were the days. Facebook began <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2018/06/facebooks-retreat-from-the-news-has-painful-for-publishers-including-slate.html" target="_blank">de-emphasizing</a> posts from publishers around 2017 in favor of posts from friends, family and groups, along with images, memes and videos uploaded directly to Facebook. YouTube, Instagram and TikTok gave rise to new classes of influencers and creators who connected with audiences and made money directly on their platforms — often discussing news they read elsewhere without directing viewers to the source. The term of art for such posts betrays the platforms’ bias: “native content.”

On YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, there’s often no way to link to outside sources in your posts. That has left publishers to find workarounds, like posting an image or video that implores users to find a link to the content elsewhere, such as on their bio page.

That left Google and Twitter as hubs for links. But Google is starting to answer users’ questions directly with AI before presenting a list of links.

As for Twitter, now X, Musk has positioned it as a replacement for rather than a portal to the news media.

Since buying the platform, Musk has touted it as a hub for “citizen journalists” who post directly on X rather than linking to their work elsewhere. He has also trumpeted his disdain for traditional media and even used X’s algorithm to throttle links to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/08/15/twitter-x-links-delayed/" target=_blank>specific news outlets</a> or rival online forums.

“<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1854045379408326909" target=_blank>You are the media now</a>,” he told X users on Nov. 6, the day <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a> became president-elect.

For social media platforms, suppressing links is seen as good business.

Links are lifeblood for web publishers, and they can be handy for users who want to point each other to original sources, in-depth reporting or delightful content. Adding a link to a post also can be an indicator of credibility on social media – a sign that you aren’t just spouting off but have outside evidence to support your claims and are happy for your audience to check it out for themselves.

But tech giants have come to see links as a drain on the bottom line, because they pull users’ valuable eyeballs away from the platform. There’s also the reality that some links lead to malware, scams or misinformation, though Musk didn’t cite that as a reason for suppressing them. X didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The decline of the link has helped give rise to the “news influencer.”

As traditional media that report the news have lost audience and stature, social media influencers who talk about the news have thrived, according to a recent nationally representative <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2024/11/18/americas-news-influencers/" target=_blank>survey</a> by Pew Research. The survey found that 1 in 5 Americans — and 37 percent of adults under 30 — say they regularly get news from influencers on social media.

Some 85 percent of those influencers maintain a presence on X, while a little less than half have accounts on Instagram and YouTube. They’re more likely to be men than women, Pew found, and more likely to lean conservative than liberal. Three-quarters have never worked for a news organization.

The leading alternative to X is only somewhat friendlier to link posts.

Since it launched in July 2023, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/07/03/meta-threads-anniversary-mosseri-politics/" target=_blank>Meta’s Threads has emerged</a> as the most popular alternative to X, drawing hundreds of millions of users. Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram and Threads, told me in a Threads post last week that Threads doesn’t explicitly suppress link posts — but its algorithm may do so implicitly, by <a href="https://www.threads.net/@mosseri/post/DCpQG0hz0m8" target=_blank>prioritizing posts</a> that get likes and comments over those that generate clicks.

There is one X alternative, meanwhile, taking a different approach.

“We love links because we love the open web,” Bluesky CEO Jay Graber <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/jay.bsky.team/post/3lbbnobqknc2s" target=_blank>said </a>on her site last week. After Musk’s post on Monday, Bluesky’s official X account <a href="https://x.com/bluesky/status/1861126303904342071" target=_blank>shared</a> Graber’s post with the caption, “Post your links on Bluesky.” News organizations are obliging, with some reporting they’re <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/earleyedition.bsky.social/post/3lbvwgzurbc2y" target=_blank>already</a> seeing <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/mkarolian.bsky.social/post/3lbunm54agc2k" target=_blank>far more traffic</a> from Bluesky than from Threads despite its smaller size.

Bluesky may have slightly miscalculated, however, by adding a link to download Bluesky in its X post. While the Bluesky account has 436,000 X followers, X’s algorithm only showed the post to 43,000 people.

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/11/26/rivian-georgia-factory-doe/" target=_blank>EV maker Rivian gets $6.6 billion federal loan to finish Georgia plant</a> (Aaron Gregg)

<a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/musk-uses-x-push-his-preferred-political-picks-trump-isnt-always-swayed-2024-11-26/" target=_blank>Musk uses X to push his preferred political picks. Trump isn’t always swayed.</a> (Reuters)

<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-26/bluesky-says-it-will-comply-with-eu-rules-after-being-called-out?srnd=phx-technology" target="_blank">Bluesky says it will comply with E.U. rules after being called out</a> (Bloomberg)

<a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-meta-urge-australia-delay-bill-social-media-ban-children-2024-11-26/" target=_blank>Google, Meta urge Australia to delay bill on social media ban for children</a> (Reuters)

<a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/11/26/exclusive-threads-adds-35m-new-signups-this-month" target=_blank>Threads adds 35M new signups this month</a> (Axios)

<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a48acdae-6a6c-4073-894f-89ef5cf8b185" target=_blank>Telegram finances propped up by crypto gains as founder fights charges</a> (Financial Times)

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/11/26/openai-sora-ai-video-model-artists-protest/" target=_blank>OpenAI stops Sora video model access after artists leak in protest </a>(Nitasha Tiku)

<a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-proposes-fresh-tweaks-search-results-europe-2024-11-26/" target=_blank>Google to tweak search results in Europe after rivals complained </a>(Reuters)

<a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-google-search-antitrust-trial-will-not-be-rescheduled-trumps-doj-revise-2024-11-26/" target=_blank>U.S. judge will not delay Google search trial for DOJ switch to Trump administration</a> (Reuters)

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/11/27/clear-tsa-precheck-cost-privacy-airport-security/" target=_blank>TSA PreCheck vs. Clear: Which is better for cost, privacy to travel? </a>(Tatum Hunter)

<a href="https://fakedup.substack.com/p/blueskys-doppelganger-problem-world-war-3-economist-instagram-cozy-ai-slop" target=_blank>Bluesky has a doppelganger problem</a> (Faked Up)

<a href="https://www.404media.co/someone-made-a-dataset-of-one-million-bluesky-posts-for-machine-learning-research/" target="_blank">Someone made a dataset of one million Bluesky posts for ‘machine learning research’</a> (404 Media)

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/11/26/amazon-osha-worker-deaths-lawsuit/" target=_blank>Workplace safety advocates sue for records in three Amazon deaths</a> (Caroline O’Donovan)

<a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/11/workers-demand-more-transparency-after-intel-secures-8b-chips-funding/" target=_blank>Workers demand more transparency after Intel secures $8B in CHIPS funding</a> (Ars Technica)

<a href="https://restofworld.org/2024/singapore-self-driving-vehicles/" target="_blank">Singapore deploys more self-driving vehicles to ease labor shortages </a>(Rest of World)

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/11/26/annoying-tech-settings-turn-off/" target="_blank">Five annoying search and phone settings you should turn off now </a>(Shira Ovide)

<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/26/24303161/amazon-influencers-lawsuit-copyright-clean-aesthetic-girl-sydney-nicole-gifford-alyssa-sheil" target=_blank>The influencer lawsuit that could change the industry</a> (The Verge)

<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/26/elon-musk-wants-to-block-the-transfer-of-infowars-x-accounts-to-the-onion/" target=_blank>Elon Musk wants to block the transfer of InfoWars’ X accounts to The Onion </a>(TechCrunch)

<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/linkedin-ai-generated-influencers/" target=_blank>That viral LinkedIn post you read was probably AI-generated</a> (Wired)

Clarification: In Tuesday’s Tech Brief, we reported that Trump’s choice for surgeon general, Janette Nesheiwat, had been a Fox contributor since 2020. After publication, Fox publicist Courtney Ur said Nesheiwat’s departure from the network was effective on Friday, when Trump announced her as his pick.

A+ effort 🤣 #nfl #nfltiktok #nflfunny 1k_watts

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National Magazine Award finalist, 2012

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Will Oremus writes about the ideas, products and power struggles shaping the digital world for The Washington Post. Before joining The Post in 2021, he spent eight years as Slate's senior technology writer and two years as a senior writer for OneZero at Medium. 

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Andrea Jiménez is a news aide with The Washington Post’s tech team based in San Francisco. She joined The Post after graduating from San Francisco State University in May 2024 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism. She was staff writer for The Golden Gate Xpress and Xpress Magazine. Her work has been featured on KQED and YR Media.

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Musk admits X throttles links as “news influencers” take over

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