That’s seemingly by design, with X not too long ago altering its advert disclosure indicators from a extra distinguished “Promoted” tag on the backside left, to a a lot smaller “Advert” marker on the prime proper of the submit.

And it’s seeking to go even additional, with X now additionally experimenting with an up to date advert show format, which makes the primary picture look rather more like an everyday visible attachment, with a small, in-image URL marker denoting the advert hyperlink, versus the extra decrease CTA bar.

As you may see on this instance, posted by X Day by day Information, the up to date X advert format makes promotions look much more like common posts, which might see extra folks tapping on promotions unwittingly, particularly as X works to enhance the relevance of the adverts displayed in your feed.

Since you’ll seemingly assume that it’s a hyperlink that’s been shared by anyone that you simply observe, which can make you much less prone to scroll over such. Which is a brilliant transfer from the X crew, although as with the preliminary change in its advert tags, I don’t suppose the FTC goes to be as impressed by these updates, on condition that they obscure advert disclosure within the feed.

Present FTC necessities state that each one adverts have to be “clearly and conspicuously” signaled in-app, although earlier terminology referred to “clearly and prominently”, and the FTC now equates the 2 definitions. There could possibly be some argument that the “Advert” tag remains to be distinguished sufficient on this respect, however the mixed adjustments, which convey adverts extra into parity with common posts, are unlikely to cross the FTC sniff check.

Although X is seemingly shifting ahead with the change anyway, which might counsel that the FTC has already given the up to date format the tick of approval. Or that enforcement motion is coming, and given the speed of change on the app underneath Elon Musk, I’d hazard a guess that the latter is extra seemingly, with the FTC but to totally analyze the adjustments, and assess their viability.

That would imply that this can be a short-lived experiment, however for now, it does appear that X is updating its advert codecs to make them seem rather more like common posts.