"Please stop!": Elon Musk shadowbans "ugly" hashtags on X

Elon Musk has previously said he "hates" hashtags and agreed they "need to die".

So X users have long anticipated the end of the octothorpe (an official name for the # symbol).

But rather than getting rid of the hash altogether, Musk appears to have decided to shadowban them.

You can still use hashtags, but they just won't help you. They have been quietly cut out of the Xosphere and are now redundant legacy features.

The slow kill is reminscent of shadowbanning, a concept introduced (like the hashtag itself) during the pre-Musk Twitter era, in which people were still allowed to post but their reach was cut dramatically.

"Please stop using hashtags," he said on X. The system doesn’t need them anymore and they look ugly."

Musk has been an enemy of hashtags for some time.

"They’re a relic of the past," he tweeted in 2023. "Keywords or phrases work fine."

Beneath this post an account called @tsarnick that is now a major voice in the AI community wrote: "Hashtags are an indicator that the poster is a boomer."

How did Elon Musk replace hashtags on X

Elon Musk's disdain for hashtags suggests the platform can achieve content discovery without relying on them. The billionaire may believe that hashtags clutter posts and detract from readability, and he seems to favor cleaner, more streamlined content to improve user engagement.

Incidently, it has to be said that streamlined accessing X is extremely streamlined today since the name change.

Press the shortcut to get into the search bar (Command (⌘) + L on Mac and Ctrl + L on Windows), then press X and you should be able to go straight to X. It will probably be the first autocomplete option that pops up because there aren't that many other sites with X in their name.

That's a very simple three command sequence which is significantly faster than selecting a icon.

Instead of hashtags, X increasingly relies on algorithmic content discovery driven by AI. The platform’s algorithms can surface relevant posts based on keywords, user interests, and interactions, without the need for manual tagging.

The Trending Topics section and the personalized For You feed use machine learning to recommend tailored content, while improved search functionality enables users to find posts using natural phrases rather than hashtags.

Musk’s preference for cleaner posts also encourages the use of link previews and natural language, allowing topics to be highlighted without adding hashtags. As a result, X prioritizes contextual discovery through advanced algorithms, trends, and AI-powered recommendations, making hashtags increasingly redundant.

Click the tweet below for a really good tutorial on how to extend your reach on X.

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