X Is Considering Removing Time Markers on Posts in the Main Feed

I’m not likely positive why Elon Musk is so irritated by litter in the primary X feed, however for some motive, he desires to chop out as a lot as completely potential, as a way to make it a extra “clear”, easy UI.

Which is perhaps extra enticing, I suppose, however…

Musk’s newest suggestion alongside this line is to take away the date/time markers from the primary X feed, so that you simply simply have a transparent, scrolling row of posts, with the primary put up itself being the main target.

As reported by Fortune:

“The proposal of eradicating date stamps can be restricted to the timeline of posts on X, in line with the supply. If a person clicks by way of on the put up, the date of when the put up was created would then be seen. Musk has instructed staffers he believes the change will enhance the person interface of X.”

Which is alongside the identical traces as Musk’s push to take away all perform buttons and engagement counts in-stream, which would depart posts trying like this:

iOS customers can now allow this show, by deactivating engagement buttons and efficiency knowledge on posts, as an elective setting, whereas they will additionally change on X’s side-swiping features to work together with posts, versus tapping guide buttons.

At one stage, X was seeking to implement this for all customers, at Elon’s request, nevertheless it now appears to have eased again on that push, making it an elective UI as a substitute.

Below this new proposal, nevertheless, X would even be seeking to take away the time/date indicator, together with the perform buttons and efficiency counts.

Which would depart the primary feed trying one thing like this:

That will truly make common X posts look similar to X adverts, which additionally don’t embrace a time/date stamp.

And actually, I feel that it might improve engagement, as a result of folks wouldn’t have the context of time to understand how recent posts are in the primary feed. So X might present you a put up from days in the past, and your instinctive response can be to the content material itself, to not the date that it was posted, which could improve your tendency to react. As a result of perhaps you’d really feel much less inclined to react to an older, much less well timed replace, feeling such as you’d missed the boat or development.

However as Fortune factors out, it might additionally result in extra misinformation being shared within the app:

“Some X staffers imagine eradicating the dates will make the platform needlessly “complicated” and can doubtless make problems with misinformation on the platform worse. Traditionally, most customers of Twitter, and now X, solely casually scroll on the platform, not often clicking by way of on particular person posts. The absence of dates from the timeline would doubtless go away most customers with out important context about data they’re seeing.”

So you might see a put up from days or even weeks in the past, and react to that as if it’s latest information, whereas older updates may very well be extra simply re-shared, and considered in a unique context, based mostly on present occasions.

Primarily, because the X supply notes, it might add a degree of confusion within the app. However then once more, if it elicits extra response, perhaps it’s price attempting?

It does instinctively really feel like a backwards transfer, however as famous, Elon is reportedly “obsessed” with revamping the UI of the app. It’s additionally price noting on this context that Twitter was lengthy criticized for its lack of innovation, and its hesitance to attempt new issues.

Musk has proven that he has no such qualms, and perhaps, a extra plain X feed, even with out timestamps in the primary timeline, might drive extra curiosity.

It’s arduous to say with out experiencing it, and nobody’s going to take action until X makes it occur.