Uncertainty about Twitter ban on promotion of other social media

Twitter decided on Sunday to ban the promotion of other social media with the introduction of a new policy. The tweets about it have disappeared and the help page is no longer online. 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 to a help page on the company’s website. Cross-posting remained allowed under that policy. What would happen with linking to other social media as a source is unclear: the 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 whether the policy is still in effect. A Twitter Safety poll is now running asking whether the policy should remain. A European Commissioner already said on Friday that 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 still run for a few hours, the answer that he should quit is at the top with 56.4 percent at the time of writing.