There have been plenty of weird twists coming from Twitter since Elon Musk bought it and became its CEO several months ago. Today, things got even weirder as the social network started blocking links to the popular newsletter service Substack.
NBC News reports that, for the moment anyway, people who try to like or retweet a Twitter post with a Substack link now get this message: "Some actions on this Tweet have been disabled by Twitter." Substack links that have a shorted link or a unique domain are still working with Twitter posts.
Of all things: I learned earlier today that Substack links were being blocked on this platform.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) April 7, 2023
When I asked why, I was told it’s a dispute over the new Substack Notes platform…
While Twitter has yet to comment on this situation, journalist Matt Taibbi claimed that he was told the Substack ban was due to the company launching a Twitter-like service called Substack Notes earlier this week. Ironically, Taibbi was personally recruited by Musk months ago to write a series of posts that were supposed to reveal the inner workings of Twitter before Musk bought the company. Taibbi also has a Substack account. He stated on Twitter that "since sharing links to my articles is a primary reason I come to this platform" he will be leaving Twitter and joining Substack Notes.
Substack founders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi sent a statement to NBC News that said:
Writers deserve the freedom to share links to Substack or anywhere else. This abrupt change is a reminder of why writers deserve a model that puts them in charge, that rewards great work with money, and that protects the free press and free speech.
This is just the latest in a series of odd moves by Twitter since Musk has been CEO. It has ditched its free API and has made anyone who wants to get a verified checkmark on their account pay $8 a month for that privilege.