The co-founder of Australian social media start-up Linktree has squared off against Elon Musk, criticising the tech billionaire and Twitter owner for his decision to ban tweets linking to other social media sites and services.
“Your proposed update, banning creators from linking to other platforms like Linktree, is at its very core anti-creator and antithetical to the open, free internet on which Twitter was founded,” said Alex Zaccaria, who is also the company’s chief executive, in a series of tweets.
Linktree co-founders from left: Anthony Zaccaria, Alex Zaccaria and Nicky Humphreys.Credit:Eamon Gallagher
“Creators deserve to own their audience and community across all platforms. It’s their work, their voice and their community — not the platform’s. And the ability to cross market audiences and platforms is essential to the modern creator.”
Linktree provides creators with a way to list all of their social media handles and accounts in one place, which they can then link to help their followers find them across the internet. The start-up has grown consistently over the past five years, boasting more than 30 million users and a valuation of around $1.8 billion earlier this year when it secured $150 million in new funding.
Twitter’s new policy, which appeared online late Sunday night and was removed by lunchtime Monday.
Over the weekend, Twitter appeared to make unannounced changes that blocked users from posting links to Mastodon, a social network that many Twitter users claim to be moving to in protest against Elon Musk’s leadership. The official Twitter account of Mastodon was previously suspended in a flurry of bans that Musk said was related to the public tracking of his private aircraft.
On Monday, Twitter sent out a statement confirming links to Mastodon would not be allowed under a new “promotion of alternative social platforms” policy, which bans “free promotion” of rival networks. Facebook, Instagram, Truth Social, Tribel, Post and Nostr are also banned, as well as Linktree and similar aggregators.
The policy appears to be designed to cut down on the current bulk of posts where Twitter users tell their followers where else they can find them, as they leave Twitter or as a contingency in case Twitter happens to close.
But Zaccaria said the move would have unintended consequences.