It’s just another day on the internet and everybody on Twitter is again, talking about ‘Twitter’.
On Sunday, Twitter announced that it would no longer allow users to share links to other rival social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and Truth Social. However, just hours after the announcement that stirred a massive backlash from users, the controversial policy vanished from Twitter’s policy page as well as from the Twitter Support account where it was announced in a series of tweets.
The change meant that users can no longer share links to their profiles on other social networks in tweets nor can they add it to their Twitter bio. The prohibition even extended to ban people from posting usernames or handles from competing platforms without URLs. The company also said it will no longer allow users to link to third-party link aggregators, like Linktree or Lnk.Bio. It said that Twitter will still allow cross-posting from different platforms.
“We recognize that many of our users are active on other social media platforms,” Twitter support tweeted Sunday. “However, we will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter.” Twitter also said that it will also take action against users that violate this policy “at both the Tweet level and the account level.”
Shortly after the announcement, company’s new boss Elon Musk launched a Twitter poll asking users whether he should step down as head of the platform. The poll concluded Monday evening with over 57 per cent of people voting for Musk to step down from the CEO position.
@TwitterSafety, another company account is now running a poll asking users whether the platform should “have a policy preventing the creation of or use of existing accounts for the main purpose of advertising other social media platforms.” The poll is set to conclude on Tuesday at 7:30 am IST.
The update to Twitter’s policy came at a time when a huge number of users have shown interest in other platforms and shared usernames or links to their pages on other social media platforms. The latest policy change was an addition to the series of changes that the social media platform is going through since Musk took it over in October. The platform has been in chaos ever since the $44 billion acquisition and saw another backlash from significant numbers of users that railed against Musk and called out his focus on “free speech” and “democratization of social media”.
Meanwhile, some users also pointed out that the change did not include other major social media platforms like TikTok, WeChat, Telegram, YouTube, or Weibo. The reason behind the exclusion of these platforms is yet not clear.
In other news, Tesla, which is also owned by Musk, has been seeing its stocks in a decline for months, falling to their lowest level in two years. Tesla’s third-largest investor, KoGuan Leo, recently called out Musk tweeting “Elon abandoned Tesla and Tesla has no working CEO.” The company’s shares have plummeted 55 per cent so far this year, making investors frustrated with the company’s head as keeps on bringing innovative changes to Twitter.
