Twitter has seemingly blocked all clickable links to fledgling social media site Mastodon, claiming they’re “potentially harmful” to users.
Earlier this year, rumours about Twitter’s imminent shutdown circulated after a series of disastrous decisions were taken by new owner and CEO Elon Musk.
At the same time, new social media site Mastodon presented itself as a viable alternative and saw over 200,000 new users join in a single week. However, it seems as if Twitter has now blocked all links to the site.
According to reports, clickable links to several of the biggest Mastodon servers can’t be Tweeted, with attempts met with a message that reads “we can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.” Twitter users also can’t add a link to their Mastodon profile to their bio, with Twitter claiming it contains “malware” despite no evidence to back up these claims.
You cannot post links to Mastodon on Twitter anymore. pic.twitter.com/bENVNrnEc5
— Sos Sosowski (@Sosowski) December 16, 2022
Mastodon’s official Twitter account has also been banned, after it shared a Tweet that said users could track Elon Musk’s private jet on Mastodon. It comes as several high profile journalists were also banned from Twitter, with a spokesperson telling The Verge that the bans were related to the live sharing of location data.
It appears that many of these journalists had recently tweeted the ElonJet mastodon link as part of their reporting on Musk, and were banned as a result. @micahflee was banned after posting this tweet: pic.twitter.com/ZIWm2aRFQY
— Mel Buer (@mel_buer) December 16, 2022
Earlier this week, Musk threatened to sue the owner of Twitter account dedicated to tracking his private jet, claiming any account revealing people’s real-time locations presented “a physical safety violation“.
Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info.
Posting locations someone traveled to on a slightly delayed basis isn’t a safety problem, so is ok.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 15, 2022
Following the bans, the European Union has spoken about possible sanctions for Twitter with EU commissioner Vera Jourova writing “news about arbitrary suspension of journalists on Twitter is worrying. EU’s Digital Services Act requires respect of media freedom and fundamental rights. This is reinforced under our Media Freedom Act. Elon Musk should be aware of that. There are red lines. And sanctions, soon.”
Earlier this week (December 14), it was revealed that Elon Musk is no longer the world’s richest man and last weekend (December 11) Musk was booed after appearing onstage during a Dave Chappelle show.
Since Musk took over Twitter, Elton John has been among those to leave the platform, with the singer saying that he cannot allow “misinformation to flourish unchecked”.
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