X is allegedly limiting user reach to posts that link to the New York Times

According to Semafor, data from NewsWhip showed that engagement on public posts linked to The New York Times website has dropped dramatically since late July. This is seemingly a unique issue to the NYT as other news organizations like CNN, the Washington Post, and the BBC have not seen similar dips in engagement.

According to the report, The New York Times' reach hasn't changed on Facebook and other social media platforms. Additionally, recent tweets by former President Barack Obama that include NYT links saw less engagement when compared to his other tweets. For example, when Obama shared articles about healthcare costs, his posts reached fewer than 800,000 users. Most of his posts reach a minimum of 10 million users.

While it's unclear what exactly is causing the drop in user reach, this wouldn't be the first time Elon Musk's X appeared to be affecting user engagement. In August, X was reported to be interfering with links to Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, Substack and of course—The New York Times, to make them load noticeably slower. At the time, it appeared that the high-profile websites affected were only big names that Musk publicly attacked in the past.

X and The New York Times could not be immediately reached for comment.