Twitter Said It Would Suspend Accounts Promoting Other Social Media Platforms, But Now It May Not

Update (12/18/22) – Twitter Support’s Tweet and the Help Center article about this new “promotion of alternative social platforms policy” have been removed. Additionally, Elon Musk has said, “going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again.”

The original story follows.

Twitter has enacted a new “promotion of alternative social platforms policy” that will see accounts being suspended or removed if they promote their accounts from other such platforms as Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and more.

Twitter explained the details of this decision on its Help Center, saying it will “no longer allow free promotion of specific social media platforms” through tweets or on account bios. This includes linking out to another social media platform with URLs or even simply “providing your handle without a URL.”

We recognize that many of our users are active on other social media platforms. However, we will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) December 18, 2022

The prohibited platforms include Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Post, Nostr, and “3rd-party social media link aggregators such as linktr.ee [and] lnk.bio.”

Twitter gave a few examples as to what constitutes as a violation, and they are as follows;

• “follow me @username on Instagram”
• [email protected]
• check out my profile on Facebook – facebook.com/username

Accounts that are used only for promoting content on another platform “may be suspended,” and any attempts to bypass these restrictions through “technical or non-technical means (e.g. URL cloaking, plaintext obfuscation) is in violation of this policy.” This means users should not spell out “dot” or post a screenshot of “prohibited social media platforms” to get around these restrictions.

While promotion is no longer accepted, the company will allow for “users to post content to Twitter from these platforms.” Additionally, Twitter will allow for “paid advertisement/promotion for any of the prohibited social media platforms.”

If you happen to violate one of these policies and it is an “isolated incident” or a “first offense,” Twitter will temporarily suspend you account until you delete the Tweets in question. If you continue to violate this policy, your account my be permanently suspended. The same goes for account names or bios.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, especially considering this new policy may be in “direct violation of European Union rules.” According to Judd Legum, there could be a penalty of a fine of up to 20% of Twitter’s annual revenue if Twitter is found to be in violation.

The linked article mentions “Gatekeeper platforms may no longer” perform such actions as “prevent consumers from linking up to businesses outside their platforms.”

IMPORTANT: @elonmusk‘s new policy preventing linking to competitors is in DIRECT VIOLATION of European Union rules.

Penalty can be a fine of up to 20% of Twitter’s annual revenuehttps://t.co/Wu1dU4JRn7 pic.twitter.com/cZWsl92npr

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) December 18, 2022

For more, check out our timeline of all the biggest moments that have happened since Elon Musk made it known he was planning on purchasing Twitter for $44 billion.

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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.