“At both the tweet level and the account level, we will remove any free promotion of prohibited 3rd-party social media platforms,” the policy says. It lists several examples of such social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram and Truth Social, which former president Donald Trump co-founded.
Twitter has slashed most of its public relations team since Musk took over the company in October. He did not immediately respond to an emailed list of questions about the new rule.
Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla and SpaceX, recently suspended and reinstated a slew of high-profile journalists who he says have violated Twitter’s rules.
The weeks since Twitter’s sale was finalized have been tumultuous for the platform, with Musk dialing back enforcement of many of the site’s previous policies regarding hate speech and misinformation while laying off thousands of employees. Hundreds of other staff members have quit.
The new policy banning links to some other social media sites follows many prominent Twitter users promoting their alternate accounts, often expressing the opinion that staying on Twitter may become untenable as Musk overhauls the platform.
On Sunday, the company’s announcement prompted debate about whether the move could create new legal challenges for Twitter.
“This is the clearest declaration of weakness I’ve ever seen from a major US tech platform, and a transparent declaration of anticompetitive intent that a GC would set themselves on fire to prevent (if somebody had that job at Twitter),” tweeted former Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos, using an abbreviation for “general counsel.” He now leads the Stanford Internet Observatory, “a research, teaching and policy program focused on abuse in information technology,” according to its website.
In addition to Facebook, Instagram and Truth Social, linking to the social media sites Mastodon, Tribel, Post and Nostr is restricted under Twitter’s new policy. Third-party link aggregators such as linktr.ee and lnk.bio are also prohibited. Listing a social media handle without a URL is not allowed.
Twitter said a first violation of this policy may range from requiring deletion of a tweet to temporarily locking an account. An account may be suspended if the violation is in the bio or account name, the company said. Subsequent breaches of the policy could lead to permanent suspension.
Twitter’s abrupt suspension of several high-profile journalists last week, including one from The Washington Post, came as Musk claimed that they had shared “basically assassination coordinates” for him and his family — an apparent reference to tweets about the platform suspending an account using public flight data to track Musk’s private plane. Twitter allowed several of the journalists to return to the platform Saturday.
Musk also temporarily suspended, and then reinstated, a second Post reporter this weekend.
“Again, the suspension occurred with no warning, process or explanation — this time as our reporter merely sought comment from Musk for a story,” Washington Post Executive Editor Sally Buzbee said in a statement Sunday. “Post journalists should be reinstated immediately, without arbitrary conditions.”
This is a developing story that will be updated. Faiz Siddiqui and Cat Zakrzewski contributed to this report.
