Twitter will prohibit users from promoting competing social platforms

Twitter announced on Sunday that it would no longer allow users to promote their accounts on a variety of social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram — the company’s latest policy shift under controversial new owner Elon Musk.

The change, which also affects Mastodon, Post, and Truth Social, as well as third-party social media link aggregators like linktr.ee and ink.bio, comes after users began encouraging their followers to view their posts elsewhere amid Twitter’s sea changes.

“Twitter will no longer allow free promotion of specific social media platforms in the future,” the company said in a statement.

“We will remove any free promotion of prohibited third-party social media platforms, such as linking out (i.e. using URLs) to any of the below platforms on Twitter, or providing your handle without a URL,” the company explained.

Users would thus be prohibited from posting messages such as “Follow me @username on Instagram,” according to Twitter.

First-time offenders will face penalties “ranging from requiring the deletion of one or more Tweets to temporarily locking account(s),” according to Twitter.

“Following offenses will result in permanent suspension.”

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, questioned the new policy with a single word: “Why?”