The new rule change comes on the heels of Musk’s abrupt suspension of several journalists who cover Twitter over the weekend.
WASHINGTON — Elon Musk has updated Twitter’s rules once again, this time formally banning links to several competing social media sites. Critics say the updated rules fly in the face of Musk’s promise to develop Twitter as a bastion of free speech.
“Specifically, we will remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames for the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post,” Twitter’s Support account on the platform tweeted.
The new rule change comes on the heels of Musk’s abrupt suspension of several journalists who cover Twitter over the weekend, as well as the banning of several accounts that appear to have gotten on the Twitter head’s bad side.
The reporters’ suspensions followed Musk’s decision Wednesday to permanently ban an account that automatically tracked the flights of his private jet using publicly available data. That also led Twitter to change its rules for all users to prohibit the sharing of another person’s current location without their consent.
The official Twitter account for Mastodon, a decentralized alternative social network where many Twitter users are fleeing, was also banned. The reason was unclear, though it had tweeted about the jet-tracking account.
Before the updated Twitter policy, the site had already begun blocking links to Mastodon, marking them as potentially unsafe malware.
We recognize that many of our users are active on other social media platforms. However, we will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) December 18, 2022
Mastodon specifically has been gaining momentum in recent weeks since Musk’s takeover.
The platform on Friday had more than 6 million users, nearly double the 3.4 million it had on the day Musk took ownership of Twitter. On many of the thousands of confederated networks in the open-source Mastodon platform, administrators and users solicited donations as disaffected Twitter users strained computing resources. Many of the networks, known as “instances,” are crowd-funded. The platform is designed to be ad-free.
If the suspensions of journalists and other newsworthy accounts leads to the exodus of media organizations that are highly active on Twitter, the platform would be changed at the fundamental level, said Lou Paskalis, longtime marketing and media executive and former Bank of America head of global media.
CBS briefly shut down its activity on Twitter in November due to “uncertainty” about new management, but media organizations have largely remained on the platform.
“We all know news breaks on Twitter … and to now go after journalists really saws at the main foundational tent pole of Twitter,” Paskalis said. “Driving journalists off Twitter is the biggest self-inflicted wound I can think of.”
The suspensions may be the biggest red flag yet for advertisers, Paskalis said, some of which had already cut their spending on Twitter over uncertainty about the direction Musk is taking the platform.
“It is an overt demonstration of what advertisers fear the most — retribution for an action that Elon doesn’t agree with,” he added.
Advertisers are also monitoring the potential loss of Twitter users. Twitter is projected to lose 32 million users over the next two years, according to a forecast by Insider Intelligence, which cited technical issues and the return of accounts banned for offensive posts.