What if this is just his "4D chess" move to condition people that removing ANY links to ANY domain on Twitter is wrong? Twitter pre-Musk would arbitrarily remove links they went against party orthodoxy (The NY Post during the Hunter Biden laptop story was the biggest example I remember).

Just declaring "we won't censor anyone any time" is fine, but you still get all corners clamoring for their "opponent side" to be silenced. If you censor any of the typical outlets (NYTimes, CNN, Fox, Breitbart, etc), their audience will (rightfully) scream censorship but their opponents will be happy.

If you randomly cut 3rd party sites under the false guise of "you may think they're our (Twitter's) competitors" (but then reinstate it after a few days), it draws heat to Musk and Twitter, but then slowly conditions everyone to grudgingly agree that censorship is bad.

Mastodon and now Substack seem like they would fit the bill as appropriate guinea pigs for this temporary experiment.