Twitter Tries To Censor Substack Links And Retweets

Two days after Substack launched its Notes feature, Twitter has been trying to censor them by reducing user engagement. Twitter users now can neither reply to these tweets nor like them. Although they can still quote the tweets, if they try to retweet it directly with the button, the screen pops a Some actions on this Tweet have been disabled by Twitter." message.

If reports are to be believed, the timing of Substack launching the Note feature and Twitter immediately censoring tweets containing their links doesn't seem to be a coincidence. In fact, it might be a deliberate attempt on Twitter's part to reduce competition.

Twitter's attempt to suppress competitors

Subtstack has emerged as a promising Twitter alternative. Unlike the others in the competition, Substack is actually popular among the people.

As per the latest reports, Substack has close to 2 million subscribers and hosts some of the most popular writers, such as Bari Weiss and Matt Taibbi.

This could be another reason for Elon Musk's discontent with the platform since he's been trying to collaborate with Bari Weiss and publish The Twitter Files".

The latest move by Twitter has heavily impacted both writers and readers.

Substack isn't the only victim of Musk's dream to rule over social media. Twitter has also been taking active steps to suppress content from Mastodon. It is a popular Twitter alternative that gained massive popularity during the chaotic acquisition of Twitter and has still been going strong.

For instance, in December, Twitter temporarily banned Mastodon accounts and restricted users from posting links that lead back to Mastodon, similar to what they are doing with Substack now.

The action was obviously not well-received by the users and the people of Mastodon. Sharing their disappointment, Mastodon posted, Not a good sign if you need to build a wall to keep people in."

Substack's response

Substack feels that it's unfair to tie up people to platforms where the rules can change at any moment, the writers can lose their content, and they cannot build a thriving relationship with their readers. After all, Twitter is not exactly a writer-centric platform.

We're disappointed that Twitter has chosen to restrict writers' ability to share their work. Writers deserve the freedom to share links to Substack or anywhere else.Substack

Elon Musk has little regard for how people perceive him or his actions and hence doesn't shy away from his extremist views. Just recently, he openly accused NPR (National Public Radio) of being a state-affiliated media which indicates that their freedom of publication is restricted by the state government, which isn't true. So it's no surprise that Musk might go to any extent to curb his competition.

If you've been looking for a way around it, we'll let you in on a little secret shared by TechCrunch. They've found that if you post the Substack link through a redirected URL, it'll post just fine, and your users will be able to engage with it without any restrictions. However, this trick might only work as long as it doesn't reach Twitter's ears.

The post Twitter Tries To Censor Substack Links And Retweets appeared first on The Tech Report.