Twitter suspends the account of Paul Graham, a VC backing Musk, after he tweeted about the Mastodon link
Paul Graham, a widely respected venture capitalist who has supported Elon Musk’s efforts at Twitterhad its Twitter account suspended on Sunday.
The suspension followed a tweet in which Graham wrote: “This is the last straw. I quit. You can find a link to my new Mastodon profile on my website.
In that tweet, he linked to a New Twitter policy prohibit users from linking to competing social media platforms, including FacebookInstagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Post and Nostr.
That policy also forbidden use various ways to circumvent the rules, such as writing “instagram dot com/username” to avoid creating the actual link.
Looks like Graham’s account was suspended because he wrote, “You can find a link to my new Mastodon profile on my website.” That could be taken by Twitter as an example of a workaround.
Asset contacted Twitter but did not receive an immediate response; however, after we contacted the company, Graham’s account was not suspended.
Tech author Gergely Orosz noted the suspension on his own Twitter account, write, “Paul Graham – founder of Y Combinator, and a supporter of Elon Musk since Twitter took over – announced that he will be taking a break from Twitter and suggested that people can find the Mastodon account. his on his website. He was banned a few hours later. I can not believe it…”
Howard Lerman, co-founder of several tech startups, also expressed surprise, tweets: “Paul Graham (formerly @paulg) literally defines every attribute one might expect on social media: Deep, civilized, caring, honest, forthright, polite, energetic Active, responsive, inclusive. I’m sure I missed a lot of his stuff. And I’m actually going to meet him here.
On Mastodon, billed as a widely popular alternative to Twitter for users who have grown tired of Musk’s chaos, Graham himself remains characteristically diplomatic, write: “I haven’t ‘left Twitter.’ I just don’t want to keep using it while it forbids linking to other sites. Plus the way things are going, this seems like a good time to learn more about Mastodon.”
He added, “FWIW I still hope Elon succeeds with Twitter. Why want to fail on anyone? But for me, not allowing people to post links to their other accounts is too much.”
Others also commented on the suspension. Alexis Ohanian, founder and general partner of venture capital firm 776, credits Graham’s stature as the “royalty” of Silicon Valley. He tweeted Sunday: “Wild. @PaulG has been suspended (for *sending people to his site to get a link to his mastadon). This is going to be really, really interesting. PG is SV’s royalties.”
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