Elon Musk says bold text will be removed from X timelines

alertuser October 5, 2024

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X owner Elon Musk is removing bold text from posts appearing on people’s timelines because his “eyes are bleeding”, according to a new post.

“Due to immediate and excessive use of bold font on X, it will be removed from view in the main timeline,” he wrote in a post on Tuesday.

Users will have to “click on post details” to see anything in bold, according to Mr Musk.

He also said italics and “any other formatting” would be removed from timelines, as the formatting options were “being abused for engagement farming”.

The announcement seemed to go down well with Mr Musk’s followers, with one person saying: “Glad to hear this. It was really diluting the timeline.”

Engagement farmers have been in Mr Musk’s crosshairs for months.

The term refers to accounts that get inflated social media engagement by manipulating users to click on their content without offering much value in return.

In April, the X owner said he would “suspend” and “trace to source” accounts found to be engagement farming, although he didn’t give many details on how.

Since the introduction of bold and other text formatting options in April 2023, they’ve been used to grab even more attention by users trying to make money from people clicking on their posts.

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“It’s frustrating when formatting is overused just for attention. It makes the content harder to read and enjoy,” said an X user in response to Mr Musk’s announcement.

Sky News asked X for more information on the changes but hasn’t received a response.