Twitter has been making frequent changes to its platform left and right under the guidance (or whims) of its new billionaire owner Elon Musk. Its latest policy update, of many as of late, will be affecting even other social media sites and their users.
Twitter Support announced today that the site will no longer allow certain social media sites to be promoted for free on its platform. Specifically, usernames to the following sites can no longer be posted on Twitter: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr, and Post.
We still allow cross-posting content from any social media platform. Posting links or usernames to social media platforms not listed above are also not in violation of this policy.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) December 18, 2022
The policy means that any account that is used primarily to promote one of the banned social media sites will be deleted. However, it doesn’t stop there as regular users also can’t put their handles in their bio or even tweet it.
Tweeting something such as “follow me @username on Instagram” will effectively put you in violation of the new policy, putting your account at risk of being temporarily locked or even suspended. You also can’t go around the rule by using third-party link aggregators such as Linktree and lnk.bio as those as also banned.
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What is still being allowed is cross-posting content between Twitter and other platforms, even the prohibited sites. Companies like Facebook aren’t being locked out from Twitter completely, as they will still be able to advertise themselves by paying up, making it clear that only free promotion of the bird app’s competitors is banned.
Ok, that seems reasonable
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022
Interestingly, just hours after the policy was posted, Elon Musk publicly agreed with a user saying that banning people from posting their Instagram profiles or Linktree links is going too far, saying it sounded reasonable. That being said, the official policy page has not been updated to reflect such a u-turn, so it remains to be seen if the company will actually change its mind on that aspect.
(Source: Twitter)
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