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A12   HEALTH
                 Monday 19 deceMber 2022
                                                                      Twitter bans linking to Facebook,


                                                                      Instagram, other rivals



                                                                      By MATT O'BRIEN and BRIAN
                                                                      P. D. HANNON
                                                                      Associated Press
                                                                      Twitter  users  will  no  longer
                                                                      be  able  to  link  to  certain
                                                                      rival social media websites,
                                                                      including  what  the  com-
                                                                      pany  described  Sunday
                                                                      as  "prohibited  platforms"
                                                                      Facebook,  Instagram  and
                                                                      Mastodon.
                                                                      It's the latest move by Twit-
                                                                      ter's  new  owner  Elon  Musk
                                                                      to  crack  down  on  certain
                                                                      speech after he shut down
                                                                      a Twitter account last week   A Twitter logo hangs outside the company's San Francisco of-
                                                                      that was tracking the flights   fices on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2022.
                                                                      of his private jet.                                                   Associated Press
                                                                      "We know that many of our
                                                                      users may be active on oth-  Twitter  users  who  are  un-  nalists  who  were  writing
                                                                      er  social  media  platforms;  happy with Musk's overhaul   about  the  jet-tracking  ac-
                                                                      however,  going  forward,  of  Twitter  since  he  bought   count,  which  can  still  be
                                                                      Twitter  will  no  longer  allow  the company for $44 billion   found on other sites includ-
                                                                      free  promotion  of  specific  in late October and began   ing  Mastodon,  Facebook,
                                                                      social  media  platforms  on  restoring accounts that ran   Instagram and Truth Social,
                                                                      Twitter," the company said  afoul of the previous Twitter   alleging  that  they  were
                                                                      in a statement.              leadership's  rules  against   broadcasting "basically as-
                                                                      The  banned  platforms  in-  hateful conduct and other    sassination coordinates."
                                                                      clude mainstream websites  harms.                         He used that to justify Twit-
                                                                      such  as  Facebook  and  In-  Some  Twitter  users  have   ter's  moves  last  week  to
                                                                      stagram, and upstart rivals  included  links  to  their  new   suspend  the  accounts  of
                                                                      Mastodon,  Tribel,  Nostr,  Mastodon  profile  and  en-   numerous  journalists  who
                                                                      Post  and  former  President  couraged followers to find   cover  the  social  media
                                                                      Donald  Trump's  Truth  So-  them  there.  That's  now    platform and Musk, among
                                                                      cial. Twitter gave no expla-  banned  on  Twitter,  as  are   them reporters working for
                                                                      nation for why the blacklist  attempts  to  bypass  restric-  The New York Times, Wash-
                                                                      included those seven web-    tions such as by spelling out   ington Post, CNN, Voice of
                                                                      sites but not others such as  "instagram dot com" and a   America  and  other  pub-
                                                                      Parler, TikTok or LinkedIn.  username  instead  of  a  di-  lications.  Many  of  those
                                                                      Twitter  said  it  will  at  least  rect website link.    accounts  were  restored
                                                                      temporarily  suspend  ac-    Instagram  and  Facebook     following an online poll by
                                                                      counts  that  include  the  parent    company     Meta    Musk. Then, over the week-
                                                                      banned  websites  in  their  didn't  return  requests  for   end, The Washington Post's
                                                                      profile. However, the prac-  comment  Sunday.  Twitter    Taylor  Lorenz  became  the
                                                                      tice  is  so  widespread  that  said  it  will  still  allow  "paid   latest journalist to be tem-
                                                                      it's not clear if — or how —  advertisement/promotion"    porarily banned from Twit-
                                                                      the  company  will  enforce  from the otherwise banned    ter. Lorenz said she and an-
                                                                      the  restrictions  on  Twitter's  platforms, as well as "cross-  other  Post  technology  re-
                                                                      millions of users around the  posting" some content orig-  porter were researching an
                                                                      world.  Twitter  previously  inating  from  the  banned   article  concerning  Musk.
                                                                      took  action  to  block  links  sites.  Musk  permanently   She  had  tried  to  commu-
                                                                      to  one  of  its  rivals,  Mast-  banned  the  @ElonJet  ac-  nicate  with  the  billionaire
                                                                      odon, after its main Twitter  count on Wednesday, then    but the attempts went un-
                                                                      account  tweeted  about  changed  Twitter's  rules  to    answered,  so  she  tried  to
                                                                      the  @ElonJet  controversy  prohibit  the  sharing  of  an-  contact  him  Saturday  by
                                                                      last  week.  Mastodon  has  other person's current loca-  posting a message on Twit-
                                                                      grown  rapidly  in  recent  tion  without  their  consent.   ter  tagging  Musk  and  re-
                                                                      weeks as an alternative for  He  then  took  aim  at  jour-  questing an interview.
                                                                                                                                The specific topic was not
                                                                                                                                disclosed  in  the  tweet,  al-
                                                                                                                                though  it  was  in  response
                                                                                                                                to  Musk  tweeting  about
                                                                                                                                an  alleged  incident  ear-
                                                                                                                                lier  in  the  week  involving
                                                                                                                                a "violent stalker" in South-
                                                                                                                                ern  California  and  Musk's
                                                                                                                                claims that journalists were
                                                                                                                                revealing  his  family's  loca-
                                                                                                                                tion by referencing the jet-
                                                                                                                                tracker account.q
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