Hrm I’m not sure this is the hypocrisy HN thinks it is. Musk wanted to stop biased moderation. He’s done so. He wanted what twitter has done previously in terms of biased moderation to be public. He’s done so. He wanted journalists to be under the same rules as other content creators. He’s done so.
Is he obliged to let people promote competitors on Twitter?
If it was just a ban strictly on competitors then it would just be pathetic, but it's more than that.
This is a ban on advertising an online presence outside of Twitter, which makes the platform way less attractive to anyone who uses it as a secondary platform, as a way to communicate with followers, while mostly monetizing another platform (Instagram or FB for example). Now that they've done this, there's no guarantee they won't expand this policy in the future. If Twitter releases a short form video platform, tiktok will be banned. Maybe youtube will be banned too. Twitter has just become untrustworthy to creators.
That's all not to mention the casual users, who use multiple platforms and want to connect their friends. I've linked my Instagram to Twitter friends before, and now I'm not allowed to do it anymore.
This is a bad business decision, no two ways around it.
> This is a ban on advertising an online presence outside of Twitter, which makes the platform way less attractive to anyone who uses it as a secondary platform
Reading the page it was a ban on empty accounts, ie a block on accounts that are "Follow me as @mike on instagram" or whatever.
Nevermind though, the policy is now reversed and Elon has apologised.
If he wishes to support free speech, as he so often claims, then yes, that carries that obligation. But he clearly does not actually care about free speech.
Any non-abserd definition of free speech concerns the expression of ideas rather than allowing hyperlinks to competitor platforms. I don't see this as a violation of free speech at all
Bookmarking this comment to remind myself in the future how far people will twist their logic to fit their narrative. Thank you for making this so clear for me.
Is he obliged to let people promote competitors on Twitter?