Twitter Bans Linking to Facebook, Instagram, Other Rivals – Twitter users will no longer be allowed to link to certain rival social media platform, including Facebook, Instagram, and Mastodon, which the firm identified as “prohibited platforms” on Sunday. It’s the latest step by Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, to crack down on particular speech after he shut down a Twitter account following his private jet’s flights last week.
“We know that many of our users may be active on other social media platforms; however, going forward, Twitter will no longer allow free promotion of specific social media platforms on Twitter,” the company said in a statement. The banned platforms include mainstream websites such as Facebook and Instagram, and upstart rivals Mastodon, Tribel, Nostr, Post and former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social. Twitter gave no explanation for why the blacklist included those seven websites but not others such as Parler, TikTok or LinkedIn.
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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 other websites. Mastodon, one of the rivals, was already prohibited by Twitter when its primary Twitter account commented about the @ElonJet dispute last week. Mastodon has grown rapidly in recent weeks as an alternative for Twitter users dissatisfied with Musk’s overhaul of the company since he bought it for $44 billion in late October and began restoring accounts that violated the previous Twitter leadership’s rules against hateful behavior.
Some Twitter users have provided links to their new Mastodon profile and have encouraged followers to visit it. Attempts to bypass restrictions, such as typing out “instagram dot com” and a username instead of a direct website link, are now prohibited on Twitter. Instagram and Facebook parent company Meta did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday. Musk banned the @ElonJet account permanently on Wednesday, then altered Twitter’s rules to make it illegal to share another person’s current location without their authorization.
He then took aim at journalists who were writing about the jet-tracking account, which can still be found on other sites including Mastodon, Facebook, Instagram and Truth Social, alleging that they were broadcasting “basically assassination coordinates.” Twitter last week suspended the accounts of numerous journalists who cover the social media platform and Musk, among them reporters working for The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Voice of America and other publications. Many of those accounts were restored following an online poll by Musk.
The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz became the latest journalist to be temporarily banned from Twitter over the weekend. Lorenz stated that she and another Post technology reporter were working on an article about Musk. She had attempted to contact the billionaire but had received no response, so she tried again on Saturday by tagging Musk and asking for an interview on Twitter.
The specific topic was not disclosed in the tweet, although it was in response to Musk tweeting about an alleged incident earlier in the week involving a “violent stalker” in Southern California and Musk’s complaints about journalists allegedly revealing his family’s location by referencing the jet-tracker account. When she went back later Saturday to check whether there was a response on Twitter, Lorenz was met with a notification that her account was “permanently suspended.”
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“I won’t say I didn’t anticipate it,” Lorenz said in a phone interview early Sunday with The Associated Press. She said she wasn’t given a specific reason for the ban. Sally Buzbee, The Washington Post’s executive editor, said in a written statement 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.”
“Again, the suspension occurred with no warning, process or explanation – this time as our reporter merely sought comment from Musk for a story,” Buzbee said. “Post journalists should be reinstated immediately, without arbitrary conditions.” By midday Sunday, Lorenz’s account was restored, as was the tweet she thought had triggered her suspension.
