Twitter Officially Bans Promotion Of Other Social Media Sites

Twitter formally introduced a new content moderation policy that attempts to thwart the “free promotion of certain social media platforms,” the company said in a thread and in a subsequent support article. A few days ago, Musk’s Twitter banned many prominent journalists that cover him, including CNN‘s Donie O’Sullivan, The Washington Post‘s Drew Harwell, The New York Times‘ Ryan Mac, Intercept‘s Micah Flee, and Mashable‘s Matt Binder, before enacting a policy that prohibited the publishing of someone else’s real-time location on the platform.

The latest addition to the platform’s rules and guidelines comes a few days after Twitter took extensive action against the site’s critics. After promising not to ban the account that tracks the use of Twitter owner Elon Musk’s private jet, the account and the person who created the account were subsequently banned. The platform also banned the @joinmastodon account for promoting the alternative social media site. This move led to Twitter‘s new policy introduced on Dec. 18. Twitter accounts that the company deems to be active for the purpose of promoting other social media sites will be removed, and other violations can result in tweet deletions, account suspensions, and account locks.

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The company’s latest content moderation policy names seven social media platforms that cannot be “promoted” on Twitter. “We know that many of our users may be active on other social media platforms,” the company said in a tweet. “However, going forward, Twitter will no longer allow free promotion of specific social media platforms on Twitter.” Sharing links or usernames for Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr, and Post violates the new policy. Some Twitter alternatives like Hive Social, seem to have escaped the hammer for now.

Using link aggregators is also prohibited, meaning that services such as linktr.ee and lnk.bio cannot be used in a user’s bio or in their tweets. Link aggregators are used to house links from all over the internet and are not limited to social media sites. Twitter’s ban will stifle content sharing on the platform and could have an effect far greater than preventing the promotion of other social media sites.

On the surface, Twitter’s move looks to be anti-competitive, and that’s a viewpoint shared by Musk. “The acid test for any two competing socioeconomic systems is which side needs to build a wall to keep people from escaping,” the Twitter CEO said in a June 5 tweet. Musk seems to have changed his mind six months later. Instead of utilizing company resources to create a better Twitter experience, the company has decided to make it harder for users to share their connections.

Moving forward, Twitter users will have to be especially careful not to promote other social media sites in their daily use of the platform. Link sharing is common across the internet — in communication, web content, and social media — but it may now result in censorship and suspensions on Twitter.

More: Musk’s Planned 4,000 Character Limit For Twitter Will Turn It Into Facebook

Source: Twitter, Twitter / Twitter Support, Twitter / Elon Musk