Elon Musk appears to confirm that X deprioritizes posts with links in their main text, to stop “lazy linking”, and tells users to “put the link in the reply”
Anyway, here's the biggest loser of all, admitting to throttling links and blaming the user for wanting to link: — https://www.mediaite.com/... Bluesky: @davidjoffe64.bsky.social : More reasons to abandon the Elon Titanic — Once the best source for science. — @tmprowell.bsky.social 🙏🏻🙏🏻 — www.mediaite.com/news/elon-mu... Evan Greer / @evangreer.bsky.social : starting to use “lazy linker” as like an old-timey piratey insult like “land lubber” or “rapscallion” — “GET BACK HERE YA LAZY LINKER” Ryan Mac / @rmac.bsky.social : The interesting/inconsistent thing about Musk here is that he's supposedly championed getting information “from the source”. Throttling links and promoting screenshotted or directly uploaded content prevents that. It's almost as if he doesn't believe what he says. [embedded post] Katie Notopoulos / @katienotopoulos.bsky.social : The thing about “lazy linking” which isn't a term anyone has used to describe posting on X, until now, is like.... I know this is just stupid to say at this point, but he just doesn't seem to understand how people post? www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk- tw... Michael Gillett / @michaelgillett.bsky.social : I quite like lazy linking [embedded post] Marcus Hutchins / @malwaretech.com : FWIW, this isn't an Elon thing. Twitter has done this since forever. Almost every algorithm driven social media platform de-ranks posts containing external links in an attempt to keep people on the platform longer and boost engagement metrics. [embedded post] Robson Fletcher / @robsonfletcher.com : The Twitter vs. Bluesky argument often centres around politics but for me this is way more important. — De-prioritizing links, “link in bio” BS, and all the other ways Twitter, FB, IG, TikTok, etc., try to wall off their platforms is so antithetical to the idea of an open and connected internet. … Judd Legum / @juddlegum.bsky.social : Zuckerberg runs Instagram, Facebook and Threads the exact same way Gabe Rivera / @gaberivera.bsky.social : Contrast Bluesky's CEO's remark here to this confirmation of the link penalty from X's proprietor: [embedded post] Judd Legum / @juddlegum.bsky.social : Elon admits that any post on X with a link is throttled — He advises you to upload content directly to X instead, where he can monetize it — Musk is the richest person in the world and his view is everyone should work for him for free [images] X: Elon Musk / @elonmusk : @paulg Just write a description in the main post and put the link in the reply. This just stops lazy linking. Ethan Mollick / @emollick : Ugh. I thought it was a rumor that X purposefully limits the exposure of tweets with links in them. That is just terrible, since it undermines the value of the platform for actual discourse about science or facts and makes this a bad place for posting any original writing. Boo. Paul Graham / @paulg : @elonmusk If I write a new essay and tweet a link to it, that's “lazy linking,” but if I tweet that I've written a new essay and then put the link in a reply, that's somehow better? Dustin Curtis / @dcurtis : @elonmusk @paulg This is the dumbest product design decision made by X so far, and the suggested workaround is ridiculous and doesn't solve the problem. Wolf Tivy / @wolftivy : The problem with this policy is that it makes twitter less worthwhile for serious people. No product launches. No carefully thought-out blog posts. No science papers. No discussing the rest of the web. Only unserious echo chamber posting. Big mistake. @bluesky : post your links on bluesky https://bsky.app/... [image] Paul Graham / @paulg : The deprioritization of tweets with links in them is Twitter's biggest flaw. It bothers me more than all the new right-wing trolls. Trolls I'm used to, but what draws me to Twitter is to find out what's going on, and you can't do that without links. Craig Lawrence / @clawrence : @elonmusk @paulg Why do we have to put links in Community Notes if links are not important? There are now so many post without links to validate the claims of the OP, and then you are making the CN people do the work to validate or refute the claims, while the OP gets all the traffic. Quinn Nelson / @snazzylabs : @elonmusk @paulg This is one of the dumbest workarounds to the dumbest change. Do better. Sabine Hossenfelder / @skdh : @elonmusk @paulg Elon, I come here to find links. I don't want to have to sort through replies or threads to figure out what the thing is about. Philippe Lemoine / @phl43 : @elonmusk @paulg This has really made the user experience so much worse. Please stop this policy of penalizing external links. @drethelin : @elonmusk @paulg Dude this is OBVIOUSLY miserable ux for both readers and writers. Nick Dobos / @nickadobos : @elonmusk @paulg No, stop lying. This doesn't stop lazy linking. This stops people from clicking the link, leaving X, and lowering time spent on platform & lowering ad revenue. It's selfish. And self serving. Just like deranking links to specific competitors is. Timothy B. Lee / @binarybits : @elonmusk @paulg The way Twitter does threading, many fewer people see the reply than the original post. Paul is right. Steven Sinofsky / @stevesi : @paulg @elonmusk Paul is right on this. Steven Monacelli / @stevanzetti : Elon Musk effectively admits that posts with links are throttled. If you've been wondering why your posts with links to journalistic articles haven't been getting nearly the engagement you would expect, this is why. I have less and less reason to be here. [image] Forums: r/EnoughMuskSpam : Elon Musk Admits X is Throttling Links — Effectively Limiting People From Reading News r/Twitter : Elon Musk Admits X is Throttling Links — Effectively Limiting People From Reading News r/technology : Elon Musk Admits X is Throttling Links — Effectively Limiting People From Reading News r/worldnews : Elon Musk Admits X is Throttling Links — Effectively Limiting People From Reading News r/Destiny : Elon Musk Admits X is Throttling Links — Effectively Limiting People From Reading News r/DeclineIntoCensorship : Elon Musk Admits X is Throttling Links — Effectively Limiting People From Reading News r/FreeSpeech : Elon Musk Admits X is Throttling Links — Effectively Limiting People From Reading News r/inthenews : Elon Musk Admits X is Throttling Links — Effectively Limiting People From Reading News See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
X had already made article sharing less legible by removing preview headlines from linked posts, while NewsWhip data had pointed to weaker sharing for New York Times links. This statement turns an inferred distribution pattern into an explicit posting rule.
The change matters most for publishers, researchers, and political users who use X to circulate material beyond the platform; X has remained important to highly engaged political audiences despite its broader shifts.
First-order effects
- Posts whose main text contains an external link face lower visibility, while users are directed to place the link in a reply after writing the main post.
- Publishers and other link-dependent accounts must change post formatting to preserve reach, adding friction to straightforward article distribution.
Second-order effects
- Social teams will test reply-link workflows and measure whether they protect referral traffic, making X distribution more operationally complex than a standard link post.
- The policy extends the practical effect of X's earlier link-preview reduction: outbound articles become less prominent both in presentation and, now, in stated distribution treatment.
Third-order effects
- If sustained, the policy further recasts X from an open referral channel into a platform that rewards native conversation before external navigation.
- Explicit link penalties can make distribution rules—not just audience size—a larger determinant of which publishers and sources remain visible in real-time public discussion.
The trend: This is part of a broader shift in which social platforms prioritize on-platform engagement and format compliance over frictionless outbound linking.