Twitter users will no longer be able to link to certain rival social media sites, including what the company described on Sunday as a “banned platform.” FacebookInstagram and Mastodon.
This is the latest move by Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, to suppress some speech after he closed his Twitter account last week, that’s track flights its own plane.
“We know that many of our users may be active on other social media platforms; however, in the future, Twitter will no longer allow free advertising of specific social media platforms on Twitter,” the company said in a statement.
Banned platforms include mainstream sites like Facebook and Instagram, and former President Donald Trump’s upstart rivals Mastodon, Tribel, Nostr, Post and Truth Social. Twitter did not provide an explanation as to why the blacklist included those seven sites and not others like Parler, TikTok or LinkedIn.
Twitter is also banning the promotion of third-party social media link aggregators like Linktree, which some people use to show where they can be found on different websites.
Twitter previously took action against one of the rivals, Mastodon, after its main Twitter account tweeted about the @ElonJet controversy last week. Mastodon has grown rapidly in recent weeks as an alternative to Twitter users unhappy with Musk’s Twitter overhaul since he bought the company for $44 billion in late October and began reinstating accounts that violated previous Twitter leadership’s rules for hateful and other behavior. Harm.
The workaround is also forbidden
Some Twitter users have included links to their new Mastodon profiles and encouraged followers to find them there. That has now been banned on Twitter, as are attempts to bypass restrictions, such as spelling “instagram dot com” and usernames instead of direct website links.
Instagram and Facebook’s parent company, Meta, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.
Musk permanently banned the @ElonJet account on Wednesday, then changed Twitter’s rules to prohibit sharing other people’s current location without their consent. He then targeted journalists who were writing about the jet-following account, which can still be found on other websites including Mastodon, Facebook, Instagram and Truth Social, alleging that they’re broadcasting “basically assassination coordinates”.
Twitter last week Suspend accounts of many journalists social media platformers and Musk, among them reporters for The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Voice of America and other publications. Many of those accounts were reinstated after an online poll by Musk.
Then, over the weekend, The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz became the latest journalist to be temporarily banned by Twitter.
Lorenz said she and another Post Technology reporter were working on an article related to Musk. She tried to contact the billionaire but got no response, so she tried to reach him on Saturday by posting a message on Twitter tagging Musk and requesting an interview.
The specific topic was not disclosed in the tweet, although it was in response to Musk’s tweet about an alleged incident earlier this week involving a “violent stalker” in the South. california and Musk’s complaints about journalists allegedly revealing his family’s location by referencing a jet-tracking account.
When she returned late Saturday to check for a response on Twitter, Lorenz received a notification that her account had been “permanently suspended.”
“I wouldn’t say I didn’t anticipate it,” Lorenz said in a phone interview early Sunday with the Associated Press. She said she was not given a specific reason for the ban.
Sally Buzbee, executive editor of The Washington Post, said in a written statement on Sunday that “the arbitrary suspension of another Post journalist further undermines Elon Musk’s claim that he intends to run Twitter as a platform dedicated to free speech.
“Once again, the suspension came with no warning, process or explanation — this time our reporter was merely seeking comment from Musk for a story,” Buzbee said. “Journalists who publish should be reinstated immediately, with no arbitrary conditions.”
By noon Sunday, Lorenz’s account had been reinstated, as was the tweet she thought got her suspended.
Our new Weekly Impact Report looks at how ESG news and trends are shaping the roles and responsibilities of today’s executives. Sign up here.
