Links to rival Mastodon were restricted on Elon Musk’s Twitter, That could cause regulators to become concerned
Elon Musk’s Twitter account on Thursday triggered a global uproar by suspending a number of reporters from significant news outlets who cover him. However, a second and presumably connected action taken by Twitter at the same time, against a quickly expanding rival, may subject the business to regulatory investigation, according to some legal experts.
The site also suspended the official Twitter account of rival Mastodon after it posted about the ElonJet account, in addition to suspending journalists who had been following a scandal around the third-party tracking of Musk’s private jet.
Mastodon and twitter standard
Users of Twitter started tweeting links to their Mastodon profiles, some half-jokingly letting followers know where they could be located in case they, too, were abruptly banned from Twitter.
However, Twitter soon started putting up barriers, censoring tweets that contained connections to Mastodon as “unsafe” and potentially dangerous, and forbidding users from adding Mastodon links to their profiles.
Legal professionals are now debating whether Twitter’s restriction of Mastodon connections may have anticompetitive or other regulatory repercussions.
Users of Twitter started tweeting links to their Mastodon profiles, some half-jokingly letting followers know where they could be located in case they, too, were abruptly banned from Twitter.
However, Twitter soon started putting up barriers, censoring tweets that contained connections to Mastodon as “unsafe” and potentially dangerous, and forbidding users from adding Mastodon links to their profiles.
Legal professionals are now debating whether Twitter’s restriction of Mastodon connections may have anticompetitive or other regulatory repercussions.
Mastodon limits on Twitter
As word of the journalist suspensions spread, numerous Twitter users declared they were switching to Mastodon or growing their presence there. However, some attempts to direct people to the alternative site appeared to be unsuccessful as a result of the sudden limits Twitter imposed on link-sharing.
Don Beyer, a Democrat from Virginia, shared a screenshot of a Twitter system message informing users that Beyer’s link to his Mastodon profile was “potentially spammy or unsafe,” adding that Twitter “is now trying to prevent its users from navigating to the official social media accounts of elected officials on other platforms.”