Social Media Platforms Hate the Written Word

Over the last few days, users of X, the social media platform formally known as Twitter, have noticed that articles shared in the news feed no longer have headlines. Instead of a New York Times story or this Substack piece displaying text in a post, there is now merely an image and a website URL. There is no way to know, at first glance, what information is contained in any shared story. Users are confronted with images and nothing more.