X is Bringing Post Headlines Back to Link Previews In-Stream

Some good pre-Thanksgiving news for social media managers, with Elon Musk announcing that, soon, URL previews on X will include the post headline once again.

As you may recall, at the request of Musk, X removed post headlines and preview text back in October, which has had a significant impact on how publications and social media managers share links in the app.

In Elon’s view, link previews are more “esthetically” pleasing without the text elements, but without them, it also means that nobody knows what the heck a story is about, unless the poster explains such in the post.

Which could make for more original posts, but it’s also meant that many social media managers have resorted to workarounds where they direct users to tap on the image to see the post.

As such, re-adding headlines will be a welcome return, but why the change of heart from Elon on this?

My guess is that posts like this from Elon’s own account:

Have led to confusion, so he’s decided to revert back.

Which is a surprising about face from Elon, who’s thus far held firm on all of his decisions, even the bad ones, despite many, many users voicing their opposition to such.

Maybe he’s turning over a new leaf, though probably, it’s just a personal preference that he’s decided to implement, based on personal experience.

Which seems to be how most of his decisions at X have come about, but at least in this case, the outcome is a positive one for everybody else as well.