From now on, users won’t be able to promote themselves, or their brands on Twitter. Twitter has stopped allowing users to post links from other social media platforms. The most notable ones include Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr, and Post.
Users won’t be able to include links to their profiles on other social media platforms. Twitter published a post outlining the new changes, and they will take action against users who violate this policy.
Simply put, this means that users won’t be able to include links to their profile on other social media networks, not they will be able to send out tweets directing users to check out Instagram or Facebook accounts.
The guideline doesn’t just end at username, it extends to users posting usernames or handles from competing platforms without URLs.
If you go to Twitter’s support page, it just says that users can no longer tweet out posts from banned platforms unless it’s cross-posted to both platforms. But this tweet from Elon Musk seems to say otherwise.
Musk’s tweet reads “Casually sharing occasional links is fine, but no more relentless advertising of competitors for free.”
What Actions Twitter Will Take?
Twitter may also suspend user accounts that are “used for the main purpose of promoting content on other social media platforms.” The platform will no longer allow users to link to third-party link aggregators, such as Linktree.
When it comes to paid promotion, Twitter has no problems with paid promotions on these banned platforms. Here’s what we could find on Twitter’s support page:
We recognize that certain social media platforms provide alternative experiences to Twitter, and allow users to post content to Twitter from these platforms. In general, any type of cross-posting to our platform is not in violation of this policy, even from the prohibited sites listed above. Additionally, we allow paid advertisement/promotion for any of the prohibited social media platforms.
Twitter says that it will remove any tweets that violate the new policy, and there’s a chance of a user account being suspended temporarily.
Twitter will also be keeping an eye out for users who try to get around the policy by masking the URLs or spelling out the “dot” instead of the URL. Sharing screenshots of your username on other platforms is also prohibited.
Which Social Media Platforms Remain Unaffected?
There are some social media platforms that don’t fall under the new policy, including:
- Telegram
- TikTok
- YouTube
- OnlyFans
Twitter’s motivation behind banning links for certain platforms remains unclear. Elon Musk also said “Twitter should be easy to use, but no more relentless free advertising of competitors.”
Twitter already actively blocks links to Twitter competitor Mastodon all across the platform. If you try to tweet out a link to multiple Mastodon servers or the site itself, you’ll receive an error message, stating “We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.”
