Uncertainty about Twitter ban on promoting other social media

Twitter decided on Sunday to ban the promotion of other social media platforms, taking effect with a new policy. The tweets about it have disappeared and the help page is no longer online either. It is unclear whether the policy still applies.

Twitter said that it would ban “free promotion of certain other social media” on Twitter. That policy also came back on a help page on the company’s website. Crossposting remained allowed under that policy. What would happen with linking to other social media sources is unclear: policy said it was not allowed, but ceo Elon Musk said that it was allowed.

Twitter did not ban all social media platforms and the reasons for choosing certain platforms are unclear. Twitter mentioned Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Post and Nostr, but did not mention YouTube, WhatsApp, Telegram, Weibo and TikTok, among others.

With the disappearance of the tweets and the help page, it is unknown if the policy is still in effect. A Twitter Safety poll is now running with the question of whether the policy should continue. A European Commissioner already said on Friday that the arbitrary blocking of journalists is contrary to European law. It is unknown whether this also applies to the policy to block some social media. Posting links to Mastodon is still not possible.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk posted a poll asking whether he should remain CEO and stating that he will respect the outcome of the poll. In the poll, which will run for several hours, the answer that he should stop is at the top with 56.4 percent at the time of writing.