Tech billionaire Elon Musk has confirmed that posts containing links in their primary text are deprioritized on X, limiting the reach of news sites. With nearly two million followers on the X platform, British-American technology investor Paul Graham made a public complaint over the weekend about the platform’s “deprioritization of tweets with links.”

Musk told users to provide a description in the main post and include the link in a reply. He remarked that this approach prevents what he termed “lazy linking.” The underlying intention seems to be to boost user engagement within X’s ecosystem, discouraging users from navigating away. For this very reason, The National Pulse has a free news alerts app you can download here. Be sure to turn on notifications.

An analysis in August 2023 showed X had implemented delays on outbound links to competitor platforms such as Facebook, Bluesky, and Substack, along with media outlets like The New York Times. These delays reportedly decreased traffic, potentially reducing advertising revenue for the targeted sites. Substack’s founders condemned the practice, insisting it hampers creators’ efforts to maintain independent platforms.

Musk initially censored links and searches to Substack last year but stopped the practice after heavy criticism. The conflict came after Substack announced the creation of its “Notes” feature, which is similar to X.

Since purchasing X, formerly Twitter, in 2022, Musk has touted the platform as a beacon for free speech online. However, despite public conflicts with officials in Europe and Brazil over censorship, Musk and X have often bowed to government pressures. For instance, Brazil’s Supreme Court lifted its ban on X just over a month after Musk agreed to censor what the government deemed “misinformation” regarding Brazil’s 2022 election.