Twitter bans mentions of other social networks on the platform

On Sunday, December 18, Twitter announced that it will no longer allow users to advertise their accounts on other social networks, including Facebook, Mastodon, Instagram, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr, and Post. The move also applies to third-party link aggregators such as linktr. ee and ink.bio. «Going forward, Twitter will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms,» the company said in a statement.

«At both the tweet and account levels, we will remove any free advertising of prohibited third-party social media platforms, whether it’s linking (i.e., using URLs) to them on Twitter or sharing your identity without a URL,» the company explained. Thus, users will be prohibited from posting messages such as «Follow me at [@username] on Instagram».

Elon Musk also spoke about the innovation. «Sharing random links is fine, but advertising competitors is absurd,» the billionaire tweeted. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey expressed his impression of the news succinctly — the former CEO tweeted one question: «Why?»

Casually sharing occasional links is fine, but no more relentless advertising of competitors for free, which is absurd in the extreme

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

Interestingly, the announcement of Twitter’s new policy disappeared a little while later, with the page displaying a «404» indicating that the content had been removed or moved. So far, there has been no information on whether the new policy has been officially canceled. Twitter representatives have not yet explained anything.

On Sunday, Musk also released a new poll asking his followers whether he should resign as Twitter CEO. At this point, 56.5% were in favor and 43.5% were against. Musk promised to listen to the opinion of his followers, but later tweeted threateningly: «As they say, be careful what you wish for, because it might come true.»

Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for, as you might get it

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

Recently, Elon Musk’s actions and statements regarding Twitter have raised a lot of questions and justified indignation among users. Last week, Twitter blocked the account of the @ElonJet bot, an algorithm that tracked the flights of Elon Musk’s private jet in real time. The billionaire himself sued the bot’s developer, and his account on the platform was banned. Vitaly Bukovsky also fell under the «hot hand» Musk also caught Vitalik Buterin. The father of ethereum complained that the owner of Tesla and SpaceX had launched a policy of authoritarianism on Twitter. «Twitter censorship is modified depending on Elon’s views on specific situations,» Buterin said.