Twitter Bans Links to Rival Social Networks, Mentions of Other Handles

Got a Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr, or Post account? Keep it to yourself on Twitter, where 'free speech' no longer extends to talk of rival social networks.

With much of the world focused on the World Cup final this afternoon, Twitter announced that it will ban links to rival social networks.

"We will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter," Twitter Support tweeted(Opens in a new window) this afternoon, adding: "Specifically, we will remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames for the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post."

In a help center post(Opens in a new window) on the change, Twitter elaborated on content that will run afoul of this new rule, including:

•     “follow me @username on Instagram”

•     “[email protected]”

•     “check out my profile on Facebook - facebook.com/username”

Efforts to bypass this rule—"e.g. URL cloaking, plaintext obfuscation...is in violation of this policy," Twitter says. "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."

Twitter says it will "still allow cross-posting content from any social media platform," as well as "paid advertisement/promotion for any of the prohibited social media platforms."

Those who violate the policy will face "a number of actions" for a first offense or isolated incident, "ranging from requiring deletion of one or more Tweets to temporarily locking account(s). Any subsequent offenses will result in permanent suspension."

If the offending links are included in someone's bio 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."

That would, of course, affect the Twitter accounts of the rival social media platforms. Facebook's Twitter account(Opens in a new window), for example, currently links to facebook.com/liftblackvoices(Opens in a new window) in its bio, while Instagram's Twitter bio(Opens in a new window) links to its help center. Both accounts obviously link out to Facebook and Twitter URLs in their feeds, too.

Jack Dorsey, meanwhile, has been tweeting links to Nostr after calling for a more open alternative to social networks like Twitter. There's no word on if Twitter plans to suspend its co-founder and former CEO. (On Twitter, Dorsey responded "Why?" to Twitter's initial tweet about the ban, adding(Opens in a new window) "doesn’t make sense" in response to a tweet about Twitter banning Nostr promotion.)

Twitter's new owner, Elon Musk, has not yet commented on the change, as he's currently at the World Cup final game.

Post founder Noam Bardin declined to comment on the ban, though he tweeted that Post users "can post any link" they want. PCMag also reached out to Meta, Mastodon, Truth Social, and Tribel, and will update this story if they respond. Notably, TikTok is not on the list of banned platforms.

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