Elon Musk removes tweets promoting rival social media platforms

Twitter also warns it could temporarily lock or permanently suspend accounts that violated its ruling against ‘free promotion’ of rivals.

Elon Musk speaks to reporters. Picture: AFP.

Twitter Inc. said it would no longer allow “free promotion of certain social media platforms” on its sites, the latest change to its content-moderation rules under billionaire owner Elon Musk.

“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,” Twitter said Sunday, in a series of tweets from company account @TwitterSupport.

Twitter also updated its website to describe the new policy, which said that the company could take actions such as temporarily locking or permanently suspending accounts that violated it.

The policy is the latest in a series of tumultuous changes for the social media platform since Mr. Musk acquired Twitter in late October. Mr. Musk has pledged that under his ownership, Twitter would welcome free speech and be transparent about content-moderation actions. But he has overseen a series of abrupt changes to the platform’s content-moderation policies.

Twitter had suspended on Thursday the official account of Mastodon, a rival social-media platform that some people have promoted as an alternative. Twitter didn’t provide an explanation. Mastodon’s account was no longer listed as suspended over the weekend.

Last week alone, Twitter suddenly dissolved its Trust and Safety Council and suspended the accounts of several journalists from outlets including CNN, the Washington Post, the New York Times and Mashable.

The company began reinstating the accounts of journalists who were suspended last week on Saturday, according to a tweet from Mr. Musk.

Mr. Musk had indicated that the suspensions of those journalists were linked to Twitter’s move last week to suspend an account that tweeted the movements of Mr. Musk’s private jet. The account used publicly available information. Twitter created a new policy last week that prohibits sharing what it called “live location information” about other people in most cases.

Twitter’s co-founder and former chief executive Jack Dorsey, who previously called Mr. Musk “the singular solution I trust” to lead Twitter, questioned the latest rule prohibiting free promotion of other social platforms. “Doesn’t make sense,” Mr. Dorsey tweeted Sunday.

Mr. Musk has warned about Twitter’s financial prospects. He said in tweets last month that Twitter had suffered “a massive drop in revenue” and was losing more than $4 million a day.

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