Although Elon Musk presents himself as an “absolute defender of free speech,” he continues to suspend accounts and posts that make him uncomfortable. This December 15 it is the Mastodon social network that has been taken for his position. His Twitter account has been suspended and it is impossible to share a link to a Mastodon profile.
Just before it was removed, Mastodon tweeted a link to Elon Musk’s plane tracking account on his own service, he noted. TechCrunch.
Another restriction decided by Elon Musk, many links to Mastodon no longer work on Twitter. A user who wants to share his Mastodon account on Twitter is met with an error message: “Your tweet has not been published, this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as potentially harmful.” Some users have found the solution: change the link URL or add a link to the Mastodon profile directly in the bio space.
For his part, Eugen Rochko, the creator of Mastodon, had fun with the decision on his social network: “What news as soon as you wake up,” he wrote. However, Mastodon does not appear as a competitor to Twitter, at least not at the moment. The decentralized social network has one million users compared to Twitter’s 450 million.
Musk changes his mind
While Elon Musk initially said that Twitter would allow any content that isn’t illegal, he has since banned some accounts for personal reasons. Started on December 13, with the suspension of a robotic account that followed his private jet trips, the billionaire continues his policy of deleting accounts that bother him. The profile of Jack Sweeney, the creator of this account, has also been removed. Elon Musk then banned at least 25 other accounts that follow private jets, but also those of journalists who antagonize him.
Elon Musk also took it upon himself to change Twitter’s rules to justify these decisions. However, in early November he announced that his “commitment to free speech goes to the point of not banning the account that follows my plane, even if it poses a direct risk to my personal safety.” tweeted.
Since then, Elon Musk he asked his followers if they wanted to reactivate the accounts that shared their location in real time, immediately or in seven days. And the first favorable responses to an immediate reintroduction of the excluded probably did not please him. The Tesla boss then relaunched another poll on his account that went in the same direction on Friday morning…
Source: BFM TV
