Twitter disabled retweets and replies for tweets containing Substack links on Friday after the newsletter platform announced its launch of Notes two days earlier, according to Arstechnica.
Well, NOW some things make more sense.
Twitter restricts posts featuring Substack after it rolls out rival service
by Christopher Hutton, Technology Reporter
April 07, 2023 10:40 AMhttps://t.co/5N1PQvIHTU— Robert W Malone, MD (@RWMaloneMD) April 7, 2023
Notes is designed for sharing short-form content on Substack and is viewed as a competitor to Twitter.
Rather than functioning like the platform’s “Recommendations” feature, which is restricted to promoting publications, Notes will drive discovery through recommendation of all forms of media, including posts, quotes, comments, images and links, according to Substack’s announcement.
“While Notes may look like familiar social media feeds, the key difference is in what you don’t see. The Substack network runs on paid subscriptions, not ads. This changes everything,” the Substack blog post read. (RELATED: Twitter Changes Guidelines So It Can Label NPR As ‘State-Affiliated Media’)
Twitter users attempting to post links to Substack have, since Friday, been greeted with an error message reading, “Some actions on this tweet may have been disabled by Twitter.”
The social media platform has also blocked tweet-embedding of Substack content, though tweets to Substack newsletters with unique domain names or shortened URLs remain accessible, according to NBC News.
“Whatever the motivation, a Substack ban on Twitter limits the reach of all the best independent voices and lets the mainstream outlets increase their monopoly,” wrote right-wing political commentator and Substack creator Auron MacIntyre.
Other critics of the new content restrictions directed irate tweets toward Twitter CEO Elon Musk, with public intellectual Bret Weinstein tagging the billionaire in a tweet calling the Substack restrictions “unacceptable and unwise.”
Substack founders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie and Jairaj Sethi issued a statement expressing their disappointment in Twitter’s choice to “restrict writers’ ability to share their work.”
“Writers deserve the freedom to share links to Substack or anywhere else. This abrupt change is a reminder of why writers deserve a model that puts them in charge, that rewards great work with money, and that protects the free press and free speech,” the statement read. “Their livelihoods should not be tied to platforms where they don’t own their relationship with their audience, and where the rules can change on a whim.”