Twitter will no longer allow users to promote their presence on certain social platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr, and Post. In a post outlining these changes, Twitter says it will take action against users that violate this policy âat both the Tweet level and the account level.â
This means users can no longer include links to their profiles on other social networks in their Twitter bio, nor can they send out tweets directing users to check out their Instagram or Facebook accounts. The policy doesnât just include links from other platforms, either; it even extends to posting usernames or handles from competing platforms without URLs.
Additionally, users can no longer tweet out posts from banned platforms unless itâs a cross-post, meaning the same post has to be shared to both the competing site and Twitter. Twitter may also suspend accounts âused for the main purpose of promoting content on another social platform,â and will no longer allow users to link to third-party link aggregators, like Linktree or Lnk.bio. Despite all this, Twitter is still fine with the paid promotion of these banned platforms (although this feature doesnât seem to be available yet):
We recognize that certain social media platforms provide alternative experiences to Twitter, and allow users to post content to Twitter from these platforms. In general, any type of cross-posting to our platform is not in violation of this policy, even from the prohibited sites listed above. Additionally, we allow paid advertisement/promotion for any of the prohibited social media platforms.
Twitter says it will remove any tweets that contain violations of the policy, and could temporarily suspend users with links to banned social platforms in their profiles. It will also take action against users who try to get around this policy by cloaking URLs to other platforms or âspelling out âdotâ for social media platforms that use â.â in the names to avoid URL creation, or sharing screenshots of your handle on a prohibited social media platform.â
Other platforms, like Telegram, TikTok, YouTube, Weibo, and OnlyFans remain safe from the Twitter ban for now, and the motivation behind banning links to certain networks and not others isnât clear. âTwitter should be easy to use, but no more relentless free advertising of competitors,â Elon Musk writes on Twitter. âNo traditional publisher allows this and neither will Twitter.â
Twitter already blocks links to Twitter competitor Mastodon at a platform level. Trying to tweet out a link to several Mastodon servers or the site itself results in an error message, stating: âWe canât complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.â We donât know whether Twitter will eventually disable links from the banned platforms in a similar manner, but at this time of writing, it seems users are still able to post links from these networks.
In response to Twitter Supportâs thread about the new policy, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, replied âWhy?â Dorsey recently donated around $245,000 to the development of the decentralized social network Nostr, which is included in Twitterâs ban. Dorsey says Twitterâs block on the network âdoesnât make sense,â and currently has his Nostr username listed in his Twitter bio, potentially putting him at risk of suspension. The Verge reached out to Twitter for more information about its new policies but didnât immediately hear back.
This all follows a chaotic week for Twitter that saw the suspension of numerous journalists â including CNNâs Donie OâSullivan and The New York Timesâ Ryan Mac â after they tweeted about @ElonJet, a now-banned Twitter account that tracked the location of the billionaireâs private jet. Musk claims the journalists âdoxxedâ his location, and later had Twitter implement a policy that bans âlive location information,â as well as âlinks to 3rd-party URL(s) of travel routes.â While Musk later reinstated most of the banned accounts after polling users on whether Twitter should lift their suspensions, he briefly suspended The Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz for âprior doxxing action.â
Update, 2:39PM ET: Updated to add Dorseyâs response and additional context surrounding his investment in Nostr.
Update, 4:40PM ET: Updated to add Muskâs comment on the new policy.