Elon Musk a(X)ing news sites critical of him

Elon Musk, who clams to have an absolutist stance on free speech, seems to have instructed X to interfere with the flow of website traffic from the platform to websites he doesn’t approve of.

The tech mogul’s latest move involves the social media app X, which has intentionally slowed down the loading times of links leading to various news outlets like The New York Times and Reuters, as well as rival social media platforms like Facebook, Threads, and Bluesky.

Musk’s dictat hurting news sites critical of him
As a result of this intentional slowdown, the affected websites now take more time to load compared to other sites such as The Washington Post and USA Today. This tactic is impacting the financial performance of the targeted sites.

It’s worth noting that the speed at which a webpage loads plays a role in determining its search engine rankings. Sites that load quickly are favoured by search engines like Google, which tends to prioritize sites that load within 2.5 seconds or less.

Early on Tuesday, a user on the Hacker News discussion forum was the first to report the delay. This anonymous user highlighted that when X users click on links to the mentioned websites, they experience a delay of at least five seconds before being redirected to the correct address via t.co. This is X link-shortening service designed to process links shared on its platform.

Load times go up to 5 to 10 seconds
Littledata, a website that monitors Google Analytics data, has revealed that as of September 2022, only websites loading in under 2.9 seconds managed to secure a spot in the top 20% of search results. Considering that both The Times and Reuters take five and ten seconds respectively to load, there’s a possibility that this throttling action is significantly impacting these companies in a widespread manner.

Interestingly, it now appears that Elon Musk’s “professional assessment” of certain websites is influencing which ones experience the impact. Musk has previously taken shots at The Times through a X post, criticizing its coverage of his business challenges and labelling it as “propaganda.” He even described its X feed as “diarrhoea.”

Not the first time where X or Twitter is hindering external links
Jack Dorsey, the former chief of X and owner of Bluesky, has also voiced his criticism of Musk’s leadership, especially after Musk’s acquisition of the company in October. Musk’s focus hasn’t solely been on The Times; he also took aim at Substack after it introduced a new feature in April that could potentially make it a competitor to X. During that period, Musk made a code adjustment on X that prevented users from interacting with Substack or its content.

Substack’s co-founders, including Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi, expressed their strong dissatisfaction with X’s decision to introduce a delay in loading Substack links. They told The Post, “Substack was established precisely in response to this kind of behaviour exhibited by social media companies. Writers can’t establish sustainable businesses if their connection with their audience relies on unreliable platforms that have demonstrated a willingness to implement changes that negatively impact their users.”