Twitter backtracks on social media promotion ban after Elon Musk poll

Twitter has backtracked on yet another new policy after Elon Musk’s takeover. The platform attempted to push through a ban on promoting other social media platforms, targeting users who made it their primary activity. They backed down within 12 hours.

Twitter and Elon Musk are once again making headlines for policy decisions. With Twitter Blue’s rushed verification implementation and removal, then the cutting down of popular features like Moments, Musk has tried to transform the social media site in just a couple of months.

Yet another ruling on December 18, regarding the promotion of other social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram on Twitter, turned heads for the wrong reasons.

The platform announced it would “remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames for the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr, and Post.”

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Twitter planned to ban the promotion of Instagram, Facebook, and other select social media platforms. The decision was reversed within 12 hours.

It also promised to crack down on users who would use third-party linking services like Linktr.ee to get around the ban.

“Accounts that are used for the main purpose of promoting content on another social platform may be suspended. Additionally, any attempts to bypass restrictions on external links to the above prohibited social media platforms… is in violation of this policy.”

However, after the move was widely criticized by the majority of users, Twitter reversed the policy and returned to the status quo within 12 hours.

Musk himself put out a poll just after the policy changes were made, calling his leadership into question: “Should I step down as head of Twitter?” The poll, with 10.5 million votes at the time of publishing, is currently 56% in favor of the Twitter CEO leaving his post.

This was backed up by another poll, made by Twitter Safety, after reversing their decision. This time they wanted the community to chime in: “Should we have a policy preventing the creation of or use of existing accounts for the main purpose of advertising other social media platforms?”

At the time of publishing, that poll has received 90,000 votes, with 84% of users voting for the rules remaining the same and not banning the promotion of other social media platforms on Twitter.