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Comment by davidbarker | Hacker News Reader

This is stunning.

  What is a violation of this policy?

  At both the Tweet level and the account level, we will remove any free promotion of prohibited 3rd-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:

  Prohibited platforms:

  - Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Post and Nostr
  - 3rd-party social media link aggregators such as linktr.ee, lnk.bio
  - Examples:
    - “follow me @username on Instagram”
    - “username@mastodon.social”
    - “check out my profile on Facebook - facebook.com/username”

(https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/social-platfo...)

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What I don't understand: they posted a second tweet that directly contradicts that rules and policies document.

> https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/160453126849379532...

> We still allow cross-posting content from any social media platform. Posting links or usernames to social media platforms not listed above are also not in violation of this policy.

What everyone has to understand, is that Elon's companies work by decree. Tesla engineers see a tweet that went out to 100m people about what they're going to deliver in two weeks and go "ohhh shit."

All of these changes are coming directly from Elon, impulsively.

Another core tenet is to remove components and try things until something breaks, and then add those components back once they've been proven to be necessary.

This is fine for a startup, but it's quite disruptive for a mature platform with 450m users.

What's better than 1 clear rule? 2 ambiguous ones that you can use to keep most people confused and paralyzed.

This confused me too, but I believe they're saying "if you upload (for example) a photo to Instagram, we'll still allow you to upload it to Twitter also, but you're not allowed to link to it".

I find it strange they explicitly mention this, though. As if they might decide only completely original media is allowed on Twitter.

> As if they might decide only completely original media is allowed on Twitter.

Pretty sure that is precisely where things are headed. A viable alternative can’t come soon enough.

What it indicates to me is that they considered blocking apps that make it easy for someone to post something on multiple social media platforms at the same time.

Which is why they specifically mentioned that this is allowed, since it was something that was top of the mind of whoever made the decision.

I think you might be right. If they're refusing to allow you to post something on one network and then link to it on Twitter, that is hilariously petty.

All this is going to do is drive creators to mastodon...which means at least for the popular ones, they'll end up gladly giving mastodon a lot of extra visibility.

I find the language itself to be pretty clear, but since it would be absolutely insane* if crossposting the same content was prohibited, you think that they simply must have meant something else with that statement. Hence the confusion.

[*] To us, but apparently not to them, so let's see where this train is headed next.

That same page continues:

> What is not a violation of this policy?

> We recognize that certain social media platforms provide alternative experiences to Twitter, and allow users to post content to Twitter from these platforms. In general, any type of cross-posting to our platform is not in violation of this policy, even from the prohibited sites listed above.

I'm not sure what that means.

Does it mean that I can post a link on Twitter to Facebook, etc., if the link is to content I have posted on Facebook, etc.?

Or does it just mean I'm free to copy/paste the text of my Facebook, etc., post to Twitter?

Or something else?

Also, they say

> Additionally, we allow paid advertisement/promotion for any of the prohibited social media platforms.

So if Facebook wants to pay me to promote Facebook on Twitter that is OK? :-) That's awfully generous of Mr. Musk.

> Or does it just mean I'm free to copy/paste the text of my Facebook, etc., post to Twitter?

This is what I've taken it to mean, but I could be wrong. It's certainly not clear.

Paid advertisment means these things are allowed in promoted tweets.

> Prohibited platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Post and Nostr

I wonder why only these and not LinkedIn, Sina Weibo or Wechat for example?

TikTok is also an interesting omission.

Lacking Gab stood out to me as well.

So, is it "free promotion," or are the platforms "prohibited"?

This is kettle logic.

Sounds like they acknowledge Musk turned Twitter into a dumpster fire, and they're desperately trying to limit anything that can remotely support the ongoing exodus from Twitter.

Deliberately. This reminds me of Japan where cults have successfully terrorised mainstream media of even mentioning them.

Don't say anything bad about Musk or link to a negative because you'll be banned from Twitter.

Truth Social as well? That could be interesting to watch...

Truth Social is a modified Mastodon instance. Given Musk's recent actions against Mastodon, I imagine that the automated tools he's using to find Mastodon instances also detects Truth Social, and he doesn't want to have to deal with exceptions to his rules.

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