OK, so basically Mr. Musk has decided to remove the text from the quotation of external sites.
The EU’s Copyright directive (article 15th) allows for some copyright exceptions for online uses:
Member States shall provide publishers of press publications established in a Member State with the rights provided for in Article 2 and Article 3(2) of Directive 2001/29/EC for the online use of their press publications by information society service providers.
The rights provided for in the first subparagraph shall not apply to private or non-commercial uses of press publications by individual users.
The protection granted under the first subparagraph shall not apply to acts of hyperlinking.
The rights provided for in the first subparagraph shall not apply in respect of the use of individual words or very short extracts of a press publication.
I don’t quite understand how using just the pictures can fall within the scope of copyright exception allowed for by the directive, as it’s neither “few words” nor “a very short extract”
It’s not trying to use the exception. It’s trying to fall outside the scope of “use”. If publishers think that “quoting” the image falls under article 15, they can ask to remove images as well, so that only the link is left. If publishers think even the mere link is “use”, they can ask to remove that too, and Twitter may be happy to block all links to news publishers like Facebook has done in Canada. But then when are we going to find out what falls under the “acts of hyperlinking”?