Elon Musk’s Twitter on Sunday unveiled a new policy aimed (seemingly) at cracking down on dissidents within the network encouraging others to leave Twitter and join them elsewhere – like Mastodon and TikTok.

The new policy, which appears poised to suspend users who take part in trying to recruit others off-site, was announced via a tweet thread on an official company account.

We recognize that many of our users are active on other social media platforms. However, we will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) December 18, 2022

Specifically, we will 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.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) December 18, 2022

The Post Millennial breaks down the new rules a bit more.

Examples of banned promotion include, “‘follow me @username on Instagram,’ ‘[email protected],l’ ‘check out my profile on Facebook – facebook.com/username’.”

The post from Twitter Support continued, “We still allow cross-posting content from any social media platform. Posting links or usernames to social media platforms not listed above are also not in violation of this policy.”

While Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post are listed as forbidden sites for cross-promotion, Telegram, YouTube, Substack, and Medium are not included.

The policy changes come amid nonstop drama as the journalists of Twitter are beginning to realize that the rules actually do apply to them, a lesson they have been immune to since at least 2014. However, they are up in arms here because they have been telling everyone who follows them to find them on other social media sites – because to them, it’s the size of the platform that matters rather than the actual job of journalism.

Some of them are finally learning what it’s been like to be a conservative on Twitter for the last decade.

The rules are so vague you can get banned for anything, which is probably the point

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 18, 2022

It’s a policy that makes sense, mind you – Musk came in with the intention of restoring free speech and getting Twitter to be profitable again. However, some might (to a certain degree understandably) question whether or not the former can be harmed by the latter, especially in cases like this.

If a person who wants to exercise speech on social media wants to share all their platforms with their followers, should they be able to? That is the question more sensible people are asking. But there are few “sensible” people among the hysterical crowd who were just a week ago still telling everyone to go follow them on Mastodon.

The rule is vague, but it’s also an understandable start in trying not to harm the bottom line of the site.

Still…

This is the social media equivalent of stopping withdrawals during a bank run. pic.twitter.com/NL9s5T6eqI

— LegalEagle (@LegalEagle) December 18, 2022