Twitter Bans Promoting Accounts on Other Social Media Sites

Hours after Twitter banned users from promoting their accounts on other major social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Truth Social, the controversial ban disappeared from its policy page.

of New restrictive policy It came after Elon Musk’s acquisition and subsequent takeover as Twitter’s CEO, after many users started posting links to their accounts on other platforms, aiming for the exit door. The resurgence of far-right accounts, Suspension of a journalist When mass layoffs.

“We are aware that many users are active on other social media platforms,” Twitter support murmured Sunday. “However, we no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter.”

The platform and Musk have since come under heavy criticism for moves that seem to defy the spirit of an internet built on free market-style interlinking.

Hours after the policy was announced, Musk hit back at the policy with a tweet saying, “It’s OK to casually share a link, but stop serving your competitor’s unrelenting ads for free.” seemed to be

By the evening, the platform’s page containing the new policy language had disappeared under a “Page Not Found” 404 heading indicating that the content had been deleted or moved. No word on whether the policy has been formally withdrawn. References to the ban on outside social media also disappeared from his Twitter support feed Sunday night without explanation.

The policy was criticized as ironic for a CEO who has vowed to be a “free speech absolutist.” Others noted that Musk’s electric car company, Tesla, once encouraged fans to visit its Facebook page. (He famously removed it in 2018).

Earlier on Sunday, Musk also apologized for the sudden policy change that followed weeks of turmoil since the Oct. 27 acquisition. was fired or exfiltrated, failed to introduce paid authentication to users, and suspended half a dozen journalists. They returned to work late on Friday.

Musk also unveiled a new Twitter poll on Sunday asking respondents whether they should resign on the platform. A new chief is needed.

Late Sunday, yes votes outnumber negative votes by about 56% to 44%. Musk said he would follow the wishes of the participants.

As it unfolded, the external social media policy targeted both the largest social media platforms and newer platforms vying for a portion of Twitter’s market share.

“Specifically, we will remove accounts created solely for the promotion of other social platforms or content, including links or usernames to platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr, Post, etc. We will,” said Twitter Support. The tweet that has since been deleted.

The policy was also intended to ban third-party link aggregators such as linktr.ee and lnk.bio. SaidAlso, among other means of circumventing restrictions, on banned platforms, “.

This policy was the most significant change made to Twitter under Musk and the most restrictive social media platform policy regarding what users can post. Other social media companies have few, if any, rules about users posting links to their accounts on other platforms.

Musk suggested that part of Twitter’s problem was that the rules suddenly changed without any kind of vote.

“There will be votes for major policy changes in the future.” Mr. Musk tweeted on Sunday“Sorry. It won’t happen again.”

It’s not clear if Musk is referring to the Twitter poll results he cited when he reinstated the account of former President Donald Trump and lifted the suspension of journalists’ accounts.

Voting on Twitter is informal and voters are self-selected. This differs from scientific polls, which require that participants be randomly selected and that the sample population size be sufficient and diverse for the purpose.

Twitter has never released an estimate of the number of fraudulent and malicious automated accounts (or “bots”) on its platform. These accounts can participate in voting.

A summary of a paper on polling in the age of social media published by BMJ Innovations in the British Medical Journal states: Despite this, Twitter is not a validated research technique. “

Twitter did not immediately respond to the question.

Post CEO Noam Bardin tried to draw users to the site after the announcement.

“Since we only use one platform, we make it easy to add all our social media links to our profile,” says Bardin. murmuredadded “free = choice”.

Other companies covered by the new policy also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Twitter’s previous rule change excluded several major social media platforms, most notably TikTok. TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance and is ultimately controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. According to insiders and commentatorsMasks are increasingly called out for him cozy relationship With China ever since he took over Twitter

Tesla started Manufacture vehicles at a factory in Shanghai Late 2019, development Blessed by the Communist government.

Reddit, Twitch, Telegram, WhatsApp, WeChat, Weibo, and right-wing platforms Parler and Gab are also exempt from the new policy.

Twitter announced the change at Sunday’s World Cup final, which Musk attended and tweeted.he was drawn Sitting beside Jared Kushner, son-in-law of former President Donald Trump, Established Truth Socialwhich was part of the rule change.

The new rules add to what has been particularly confusing for the company and its new owners, Twitter said. Suspension and reinstatement of some journalists Over the past few days, following a sudden rule change banning real-time location reporting for accounts that revealed the existence of third parties tracking private jet flights like Musk.

The rule is subject to government scrutiny, including the Federal Trade Commission and the European Union, which oversee potential anti-competitive corporate behavior. Rules on how tech companies compete with each otherA spokeswoman said the FTC did not comment on Twitter’s new policy.

As presented, the outside social media ban states that first-time offenders may have to delete their tweets or lock their accounts, with “subsequent violations leading to a permanent suspension.” Users who violate our policies by linking or mentioning other social media accounts in their profile or account name will have their accounts suspended and, per the policy language, must be deleted to restore their accounts. is currently missing.

Twitter said the rule would allow users to cross-post content from other sites and links or usernames to non-prohibited social media sites. Users who believed their account was suspended or locked in error bring the actionadded.

Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey questioned the move. respond To the thread explaining the new policy in “why?”.In another tweet, he said Said Policy “doesn’t make sense”.

Others in the tech industry also criticized the move. Aaron Levy, his CEO of cloud storage company Box, said: murmured“This is just sad,” London-based technology analyst Benedict Evans wrote. murmured The move was “absolutely pathetic”.

Alex Stamos, director of the Internet Observatory at Stanford University and former chief security officer at Facebook, said: tweeted with The new policy is “the clearest declaration of weakness and overt declaration of anti-competitive intentions we’ve seen in a major US technology platform to date.”

Prominent venture capitalist Paul Graham said the rule change forced him to quit Twitter. “This is the final straw,” he said. murmurednoted that a link to his account on Mastodon was on his website.

Graham’s account was suspended a few hours later.

Taylor Lorenz, a technology and online culture columnist for The Washington Post, was suspended from Twitter on Saturday night after tweeting to Musk asking for comments on the article, then reinstated…on your site. “

“People don’t want to be locked up in jail and Musk is doing it,” she told NBC News.

Lorenz had previously pinned tweets promoting his account on other sites to his profile, some of which were later banned. But as soon as she was reinstated, which was just around the time the company announced its new policy, she took down the tweet, she said.

On Sunday, many users were circulating Musk’s earlier tweets that could be seen as criticizing his policy banning posting outside of social media platforms.

Most notably, one of his tweets from June. read: “A tough test of two competing socio-economic systems, which side needs to build a wall to keep people from fleeing? That’s bad!”