Elon Musk has been a free speech advocate since taking over Twitter. But when he sees business influence threatened, Twitter is sealed off from rivals. Now it hit a popular newsletter platform.
Elon Musk’s Twitter has once again attempted to make it difficult for its users to interact with a competing online service. Over the Easter weekend, strict restrictions were imposed on tweets with links to the Substack blog platform.
Substack had announced a few days earlier a service called Notes that could become a competitor to Twitter. On Easter Monday, the restrictions were largely lifted after criticism.
With Substack, everyone can publish their texts and also market them as a newsletter in a subscription model. Among other things, some well-known journalists became self-employed and earn money with subscriptions. The authors used Twitter to direct followers there to the Substack posts.
Twitter users noticed over the weekend that posts linking to Substack could not be retweeted or liked. The links themselves were hidden behind the verbosely worded warning that they had been classified as potentially unsafe. Only at the end of the notice did a small clickable link say: “Ignore this warning and continue”. Searching for “substack” on Twitter didn’t show the platform’s account.
Restrictions have since been lifted
Twitter owner Musk initially wrote on Twitter that it was wrong to describe the procedure as a blockade, since the links were ultimately accessible. He also claimed that Substack attempted to steal large amounts of data from Twitter for Notes. The Substack founders rejected this in a reaction. Many users criticized the steps as patronizing a competitor.
The restrictions have since been largely lifted. Only the Twitter search initially continued to hide the substack account. Substack emphasized that Notes is intended as a new place within a subscription platform, not as a competitor to existing online networks.
Tech billionaire Musk paid around 44 billion dollars for Twitter and, after a slump in sales, is trying to boost business with subscription income, among other things.
Repeated attempts to restrict links
Twitter also used to have a newsletter platform called Revue, but it was shut down after Musk took it over in the fall. Many Revue users then ended up at Substack.
Twitter had already tried to restrict links to other online platforms in January. Among others, Facebook, Instagram and the Twitter alternative Mastodon were affected. The move was quickly reversed after heavy criticism.
The substack limitations also caused a rift in the Musk camp. US journalist Matt Taibbi, who was hired to provide access to internal Twitter records to expose alleged abuses and government censorship at the platform prior to Musk’s acquisition, announced he would prioritize his Substack presence over Twitter. Musk then unfollowed Taibbi’s profile. (dpa)