Oh, what thin skin you have, Mr. Billionaire!

While Elon Musk attended the World Cup final in Qatar (because he cares not a whit about human rights or the amount of carbon debt his flights incur), Twitter announced some interesting new changes to their policies.

Here’s a link to their brand spanking new Promotion of Alternative Social Platforms Policy.

I’m quoting the most salient parts below in case they are amended due to pushback.

“At both the Tweet level and the account level, we will remove any free promotion of prohibited 3rd-party social media platforms, such as linking out (i.e. using URLs) to any of the below platforms on Twitter, or providing your handle without a URL:

• Prohibited platforms:
  • Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Post and Nostr
  • 3rd-party social media link aggregators such as linktr.ee, lnk.bio
• Examples:
  • “follow me @username on Instagram”
  • “username@mastodon.social”
  • “check out my profile on Facebook – facebook.com/username”

Accounts that are used for the main purpose of promoting content on another social platform may be suspended.  Additionally, any attempts to bypass restrictions on external links to the above prohibited social media platforms through technical or non-technical means (e.g. URL cloaking, plaintext obfuscation) is in violation of this policy. This includes, but is not limited to, spelling out “dot” for social media platforms that use “.” in the names to avoid URL creation, or sharing screenshots of your handle on a prohibited social media platform.

• Example: “instagram dot com/username”

What is not a violation of this policy?

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.

What happens if you violate this policy?

Tweet deletion and temporary account locks

• If violations of this policy are an isolated incident or first offense, we may take a number of actions ranging from requiring deletion of one or more Tweets to temporarily locking account(s). Any subsequent offenses will result in permanent suspension.

Temporary suspension

• If violations of this policy are included in your bio and/or account name, we will temporarily suspend your account and require changes to your profile to no longer be in violation. Subsequent violations may result in permanent suspension.”

Several (okay, seven) things jumped out at me here:

1. If I hadn’t already deactivated my Twitter account, it would probably have been suspended because I tweeted my Mastodon handle and had it in my bio.
2. Notice all the mention of “free” – apparently, if you pay Twitter money you may be able to post links to your Instagram.
3. Feeling threatened by Facebook links in 2022 is hilarious.
4. Creators of all kinds (artists, musicians, writers, even Etsy sellers) use linktr.ee and Instagram to promote and/or sell their work. Many of them stayed on Twitter because they literally couldn’t afford to lose their audience there. Now they’re trapped in a closed eco-system where they can’t link out to their storefronts through the usual intermediaries, unless they give Elmo some money.
5. OnlyFans is ok! Time will tell if this is a pro sex-work stance (which would be great!) or um, something else. I suspect it’s the latter. LinkedIn is also ok because Elmo might need to hire some engineers.
6. Gab, Gettr, Parler are all fine, but Truth Social is not because Elmo asked Orange Daddy to come back to Twitter and Orange Daddy said “Nah.” (Coincidentally, Elmo was hanging out with Orange Son-in-Law Jared Kushner at the World Cup final).
7. Hive is also ok, because Hive is a trash fire and not a threat. By this I mean Hive the social networking site, not Hive the project management tool. (Sidenote: Why has Hive not sued the social network version over naming rights? Are they just waiting for it to implode?)

In other news:

Musk got booed at a Dave Ch*ppelle show and is no longer the richest man on the planet. Those two things are unrelated. I am not surprised he was at a Dave Cha*ppelle show because Elmo is nothing if not anti-trans.

Musk also suspended several accounts including the one that tracked his private jet because they allegedly offered “assassination coordinates” – a move perhaps prompted by panicked fears for his family after an incident involving his young son, and perhaps somewhat also prompted by people having an easy way to see how many air miles the king of electric cars racks up on the daily. Who is to say? In contrast, my assassination coordinates are a closely guarded secret shared only by the dozens of people who know where I live.

Additional tangentially related schadenfreude: Mediaite don’t seem to be very social media savvy. They published a piece about Twitter suspending the accounts of journalists and of a user called John Mastodon, the founder of a competing social network. The blocked account was called Join Mastodon, the founder of Mastodon is called Eugen Rochko. They have since issued a correction, but “John Mastodon” has already become a meme to the extent that he has his own mastodon account, complete with AI generated profile images.

Phew! That was a lot. Have a pic of Amos who is so bored of Twitter drama that he fell asleep as I was typing.