Hide or Show Read More Button by Content Area

This checks the number of characters and hide the button server-side in content.php:

<?php
$excerpt = get_the_excerpt();
$excerpt_length = strlen($excerpt);
$excerpt_limit = 100; // Match the limit set in functions.php

// only for debugging:
var_dump($excerpt);
var_dump($excerpt_length);
?>

<div class="news-main">
    <?php the_excerpt(); ?>
</div>

<?php if ($excerpt_length >= $excerpt_limit) : ?>
    <div class="news-read">
        <a href="<?php echo get_permalink($post->ID); ?>" target="_blank" rel="noopener" class="Read">Read More</a>
    </div>
<?php endif; ?>

If your file contains the_excerpt();, comment it out.

<?php // the_excerpt(); ?>

Edit:

Your output looks fine. Can you please remove my code and replace it with <?php the_excpert(); ?> again.

Please update your code in your functions.php:

function my_excerpt_length($length) {
    return 100; // Set excerpt length to 100 words
}
add_filter('excerpt_length', 'my_excerpt_length', 20, 1);

Your function should be defined before calling add_filter(). Otherwise, PHP may throw an error if it can’t find my_excerpt_length.

If another plugin or theme is overriding excerpt_length with a later priority, your function might not take effect. Therefore add 20, 1

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