Musk banned Twitter users from posting links to their accounts and posts on third-party networks. After a flurry of criticism, the message about the policy update was removed from the official account of the social network, and Elon launched a poll – whether he should leave the post of CEO.
According to a message published yesterday on Twitter’s official page, the social network banned users from linking to their accounts and posts on third-party networks: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post faced the ban.
Users will no longer be able to add links to their profiles on other social networks to their Twitter bios, or post tweets that encourage people to switch to Instagram or Facebook accounts. The policy applies to usernames and even handles of competing platforms without URLs.
“Exchanging random links is fine, but there will be no more competitor ads. This is absurd,” said Elon Musk.
Of course, sharing occasional links is fine, but no more relentless advertising of competitors for free, which is absurd in the extreme
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022
Course
FINANCIAL ANALYSIS
Other platforms such as Telegram, TikTok, YouTube, Weibo and OnlyFans remained unblocked by Twitter. The method of selecting “banned sites” was not fully understood, so it is not surprising that the announcement of the update provoked a barrage of criticism towards the CEO of Twitter.
In response to a Twitter support query about the new policy, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey wrote: “Why?” (Dorsey recently donated about $245,000 to the development of the decentralized social network Nostr, which is banned by Twitter). Dorsey claims the ban “doesn’t make sense” and at the time of posting, his bio listed a name from Nostr – potentially putting him at risk of being banned.
Why?
— jack (@jack) December 18, 2022
doesn’t make sense
— jack (@jack) December 18, 2022
Hours later, Twitter removed the @TwitterSafety tweets and a webpage detailing the new policy, and Elon Musk apologized and said the major changes would only be implemented after a vote. The previously published policy is due to take effect on Sunday.
Going forward, they will be vocal for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022
Recently, Musk’s actions on Twitter have not yielded the results he expected (just think of the launch of Twitter Blue, the constant changes in its price and colors of “ticks”, as well as the chaos caused by subscriptions on the social network and the exodus of advertisers). It seems that another failure made the billionaire think about whether he made the right decision by taking the position of CEO of the social network. And it seems that his subscribers should help him in this – because Elon has already launched a vote on his page about whether he should step down.
Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022
Even before Musk became the owner of the company, there were reports that he planned to serve as CEO of Twitter only temporarily. A month later, he told the court that he planned to find someone else to run the company. The entrepreneur (mostly) acted according to the results of the surveys he ran in his account, but his opinions may change. Previously, he also promised that “no serious decisions about content or account recovery” will not take place without convening a content moderation board, and in the future he independently blocked or unblocked, for example, the accounts of Trump or Kanye West.
It was just the end of a crazy week for Twitter and Elon Musk. Even before the updates were announced, the site began banning Mastodon links; the social network banned “unsolicited” journalists from CNN and The New York Times and blocked the @ElonJet account, which tracked the location of Musk’s private jet. Also, the billionaire is no longer the richest man in the world — his wealth has almost halved from a peak of $340 billion, and continues to decline: the market capitalization of his car company Tesla has fallen below $500 billion for the first time in 2 years.
