X is no longer throttling posts with links, according to Elon Musk.
That news comes from an exchange earlier today on X involving Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, X product chief Nikita Bier, investor Paul Graham, and X’s owner, Elon.
To recap: After Zuck shared a post pointing people to his latest piece on AI, Bier replied: “Hello Mark, you do not need to put the links in replies anymore.” Graham then jumped in to ask the obvious question: “You no longer penalize tweets with links in them?”
Elon’s response: “We haven’t for over a year.”
Here’s the full exchange:
Wait, what? This is news to many, right?
For anyone who has carefully dropped links into the first reply to avoid X’s algorithmic penalty, it’s also a pretty big update.
Why This Matters:
For years, one of the unofficial rules of posting on X has been simple: don’t put a link in the post.
After Elon acquired Twitter (RIP) back in 2022, the platform became very aggressive in discouraging users from sending people elsewhere. He publicly acknowledged in 2024 that posts containing links received less reach, arguing that the platform’s algorithm favored content that kept people in-platform.
That led to the “publish the post without a link, then drop the URL into the first reply” workaround.
If Elon’s latest statement is accurate, that workaround is no longer necessary. And, if we’re being honest, it was a pain. (We did it for AdTechRadar for a long time.)
Experts React:
Here are some of the reactions to the news on X:
Our Take:
OK, so what’s the adtech angle here? Give us a second.
Uhhh…
OK! External links are ultimately about traffic, and traffic is ultimately about monetization. Publishers and brands, in particular, have spent years jumping through hoops to get people off X and onto websites where they can serve an ad, sell something, or capture some data.
So, this removes a tiny bit of friction from that process on the open web.
There? Did that work? We made it about adtech.
(PS, X continues to do smart things.)
