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Twitter has banned linking back to several popular social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Linktree, and more - here's what you need to know.
Twitter has been the front-running Platform of so-called Free Speech Absolutism, but now it's banning link sharing from alternative social media platforms & 3rd party link aggregators. The company says that users will no longer be able to link directly to Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon and other pages on its site.
"At both the Tweet level and the account level, we will remove any free promotion of prohibited 3rd-party social media platforms, such as linking out (i.e. using URLs) to any of the below platforms on Twitter, or providing your handle without a URL..."
Twitter has been undergoing MANY changes since it was acquired by Elon Musk. Changes include the firing of staff, the exposé of the latest Twitter Files (AKA how the US government controlled election opposition through the use of Twitter), and much more.
However, as of recent, there's an even bigger change.
Twitter has started waging a war & closing it's traffic gates to other competitors.
Here's the latest policy update which explains how Twitter users are now not allowed to link to the following list of websites:
Additionally Twitter will no longer allow users to link out to 3rd party link aggregators like:
As per the policy update itself, examples of policy infringement include tweets that say:
"follow me on @username on IG"
or...
"check out my linktr.ee at "linktr.ee link""
or...
"check out my profile on FB at "facebook.com/user""
There seems to be two sides to the argument of why Twitter decided to roll out this policy.
One is to increase the content quality that's seen on Twitter.
Many accounts just link share and provide no real contextual value whatsoever to the Twitter Feed.
The other side is purely business related.
Why allow users to drive traffic to your competitors when you can keep the conversation exclusively on Twitter.
This policy update means that both marketers & users need to be extra careful when posting on Twitter.
As per the policy and other updates, users are allows to run ads to the prohibited links, but will receive a warning/strike or temporary/permanent suspensions if they're caught linking out Twitter using the aforementioned prohibited links & 3rd party link aggregators.
Interestingly enough, Twitter has also explicitly mentioned that attempting to bypass the prohibition through the use of cloakers or other bypassing tech WILL RESULT IN CONSEQUENCES.
So be aware.
As per Twitter's policy update, you're allowed to cross post across sites onto Twitter - but it's relatively unclear as to whether you're allowed to include any of the prohibited social media links in the posts themselves.
To be safe, I recommend you don't.
I think that there's a really high chance that Twitter might indeed create their own aggregator.
If they do, I wouldn't be surprised if they create direct input errors, or at least a warning, when users try to input one of the prohibited websites.
As per Elon's previous managerial decisions related to Twitter (referring to the reversal of purchased verifications day after its roll-out) I am confident that there's a VERY HIGH CHANCE for a policy reversal or at least amendments that can make relax the prohibitions.
As of now, Twitter is actively working on decreasing bot usage and populations on Twitter whilst also working on trying to perfect the process of Free Speech.
A full article on how botting can be solved, using the playbook of Facebook & Instagram can be found here.
As per Free Speech, changes include the exposing of the so-called Twitter Files, the firing of previous employees that have been implicated in the silencing of electoral opposition, and the testing of a contextual tab on all Tweets intended to share additional context on "hard to understand" tweets.
But only time can tell.
Additionally you can watch a video I made on the expected changes bound to come from Elon's management below.
