Twitter to Yank Accounts Linking to Other Social Media Platforms

Twitter is taking steps to prevent users from promoting other social media platforms.

“We recognize that many of our users are active on other social media platforms,” the company’s Twitter support account wrote Sunday (Dec. 18). “However, we will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter.”

We recognize that many of our users are active on other social media platforms. However, we will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) December 18, 2022

That means Twitter will remove accounts created solely to promote other social platforms and “content that contains links or usernames for the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr, and Post.”

Twitter said it will still let people cross-post content from other platforms. In addition, posting links or usernames to social platforms not included in the above list won’t violate the policy.

Promoting outside social media accounts has been common on Twitter since new CEO Elon Musk took over the platform in October, as users worry the site will either collapse or just become unusable.

The company’s move was immediately criticized by users Sunday afternoon (Dec. 18).

Eric Freyssinet, chief scientific advisor to the French law enforcement agency Gendarmerie Nationale, suggested that the new policy could put Twitter at risk.

“Any attempt to remove my tweets that link to my other social media accounts, not violating any law, would actually make #twitter an editorial media, and no longer a social media platform, with civil and criminal liability for *any* illegal content therein,” he wrote.

Any attempt to remove my tweets that link to my other social media accounts, not violating any law, would actually make #twitter an editorial media, and no longer a social media platform, with civil and criminal liability for *any* illegal content therein. https://t.co/kwoFHVue43

— Éric Freyssinet (@ericfreyss) December 18, 2022

The change comes a little less than a week after Twitter resurrected its Twitter Blue subscription service. It relaunched last week, with users paying $8 per month on the web — or $11 per month for subscribers who access the platform on Apple’s iOS — to “get access to subscriber-only features, including the blue checkmark.”

Twitter has seen more sweeping changes under Musk’s ownership, with the company slashing thousands of jobs to shore up the cost of the Tesla CEO’s $44 billion purchase.

Last month, Musk said the company had seen a “massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers,” and argued nothing about Twitter’s content moderation has changed “and we did everything we could to appease the activists.”

“Extremely messed up!” he wrote. “They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.”