Linking to Other Social Media Platforms on Twitter Is Now Banned
Will this change affect writers promoting Medium articles on Twitter?
(December 18, 2022) This Sunday afternoon Twitter dropped its latest bombshell piece of news and announced a ban on users linking to other social networks, including popular sites like Facebook and Instagram.
If you use your Twitter account to promote other social networks, you’ll want to hear this. On Sunday, Twitter announced the following,
“We know that many of our users may be active on other social media platforms; however, going forward, Twitter will no longer allow free promotion of specific social media platforms on Twitter.”
Exactly what are the platforms Twitter is talking about here?
Twitter listed the following banned platforms
- Mastodon
- Truth Social
- Tribel
- Post
- Nostr
- 3rd-party social media link aggregators such as linktr.ee, lnk.bio
What does this mean for Twitter users?
It means if you drop a tweet or if you have a link to one of these platforms in your bio, you’re violating Twitter policy.
For example, you can’t say, “follow me @username on Instagram.”
My bio is in violation
I have a link to my LinkedIn profile in my Twitter bio. LinkedIn wasn’t listed above, so perhaps that one is okay. However, I recently added my new Mastodon profile link, which has been banned.
(I suppose I should delete my Mastodon link but something inside of me doesn’t want to.)
Do what you want, as long as you pay for it
You won’t be in violation if you pay. Twitter stated,
“Additionally, we allow paid advertisement/promotion for any of the prohibited social media platforms.”
What if your account is found in violation?
Your tweet will be deleted and your account will be temporarily suspended. If you continue to violate the policy, your account may be permanently suspended.
Can Medium writers still promote links to Medium articles on Twitter?
Medium writers use Twitter to promote their stories all of the time. You may be wondering if you can still link your Medium stories there.
It appears to be allowed. For now. Medium was not mentioned on the banned social platform list.
Don’t Medium and Twitter share a connection?
They did. Medium founder and former CEO, Ev Williams used to be on the board of directors for Twitter, but he is no longer on Twitter’s board nor running Medium. However, Twitter is still currently integrated with Medium, making it easy to Tweet out story links.
But…take a look at this statement from Twitter
“Accounts that are used for the main purpose of promoting content on another social platform may be suspended.”
Perhaps I’m reading into things, but that doesn’t sound promising to me.
My take on this latest move
My first thought: When people do a lot of screaming about free speech, bad things seem to follow.
My second take is a bit more practical: If you rely heavily on Twitter for promoting your work, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to start branching out to other social media sites.
Relying on more than one social media platform is never a bad idea. You don’t want to wake up one morning to find the primary way you reach your followers has been suspended, either temporarily or permanently.
After all, you never know when a space billionaire may take over your platform of choice and turn it upside down based on his latest whim.
It’s all new
This move was just announced. We’ll have to wait and see what happens next and how it affects Twiter users.
What’s your take on this latest policy?
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