Twitter Bans Live Locations and Third-Party Links to Banned Social Media Platforms, after Donie O’Sullivan and Ryan Mac
CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan was suspended and Ryan Mac from The New York Times was one of a number of journalists who lost their jobs after they used a now-banned social media platform to track the location of a billionaire. Musk claimed that the journalists placed his location in the wrong place, and later had a policy that banned live location information as well as third-party links to travel routes. After polling users on whether to lift suspensions, Musk briefly suspended The Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz for doing his job.
Twitter says it will remove any tweets that contain violations of the policy, and could temporarily suspend users with links to banned social platforms in their profiles. It will take action against users who try to get around the policy by using cloaking URLs to other platforms or forcing out dot for social media platforms. In the names to avoid sharing the same information on a banned social media platform.
Kathy lost her account after changing her screen name to Musk. She told a reporter that she used his photo as well.
“I guess not ALL the content moderators were let go? Lol,” Griffin joked afterward on Mastodon, an alternative social media platform where she set up an account last week.
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Actor Valerie Bertinelli had similarly appropriated Musk’s screen name — posting a series of tweets in support of Democratic candidates on Saturday before switching back to her true name. “Oh-dokey.” I’ve had fun She said that she thinks she made her point.
The $8 verified accounts are Musk’s way of democratizing the service, he claims. The Saturday update states that users who “sign up now” will get the blue check next to their names as they already follow celebrities, companies and politicians.
The service would first be offered in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. It wasn’t available on Sunday, and there was no indication that it would go live that day. Esther Crawford, an employee of the micro social network, told The AP it is coming soon, but not yet.
If the current verified users of blue checks were stripped of their verification, that could make it worse on the platform for Tuesday’s elections.
Like Griffin, some Twitter users have already begun migrating from the platform — Counter Social is another popular alternative — following layoffs that began Friday that reportedly affected about half of Twitter’s 7,500-employee workforce. They fear a breakdown of moderation and verification could create a disinformation free-for-all on what has been the internet’s main conduit for reliable communications from public agencies and other institutions.
Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, sought to assuage such concerns in a tweet Friday. He said that the front-line moderation staff were the most affected by the job cuts.
Musk tweeted late Friday that there was no choice but to cut jobs “when the company is losing over $4M/day.” He did not provide details on the daily losses at Twitter and said employees who lost their jobs were offered three months’ pay as severance.
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It seems Twitter doesn’t currently have an ironclad filter for this, as I was able to tweet an alternate link to the Instagram version of the tracker. Despite its CEO pledge to not ban the account that followed him, it appears that the platform is stepping up its actions against Sweeney.
live location information, including information shared on Twitter directly or links to 3rd-party URL(s) of travel routes, actual physical location, or other identifying information that would reveal a person’s location, regardless if this information is publicly available;
Users may not link out to social media platforms that are subject to the restrictions under the new policy. To alert followers where they can find you on social media, users are not allowed to include their account names on other platforms.
We recognize that certain social media platforms provide alternative experiences to Twitter, and allow users to post content to Twitter from these platforms. Any form of cross-posting to our platform is not violation of the policy even if it is from the sites that are not allowed. Additionally, we allow paid advertisement/promotion for any of the prohibited social media platforms.
TikTok, a social media platform with links to China that has sparked national security concerns, was not on the list. Musk’s own significant stake in China through his other company, Tesla, have raised doubts among critics as to whether the CEO would stand up to China if the country’s leaders sought to apply pressure on Twitter.
Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of the platform, said they were confused by the announcement. The person followed up by saying that it doesn’t make sense.
The policy change comes just a week after some users said they were moving to other platforms in theWAKE of the suspension of journalists who covered Musk. The links to Mastodon were blocked by Twitter because of the backlash to the journalists suspensions.
The company said attempts to circumvent that policy would be enforced against. If you use link- shortening or try to spell out a URL in plain text, you will be violating the rules, the company said.
“If violations of this policy are included in your bio and/or account name, we will temporarily suspend your account and require changes to your profile to no longer be in violation,” the blog post said. Subsequent violations may result in a permanent suspension.
Meta, a company that makes social media software available to users in a multi-site publishing scenario, and a response to a request for comment
Users may continue to use third-party software to simultaneously publish their social media content to multiple sites, including Twitter, the company said.
Meta and the parent company of Truth Social, Trump Media & Technology Group, did not respond to a request for comment.