After restricting users from liking, sharing, and commenting on tweets with Substack links for several days, Twitter has finally reversed the restrictions and allowed free interactions with the posts.
Since Thursday, Twitter has implemented steps to restrict Substack’s posts after the newsletter company announced it was developing a product to compete with Twitter. This action drew significant backlash from the tech community on Twitter, with many criticizing Elon Musk for trying to suppress a competitor.
The removal of the restrictions was met by a tweet from Substack which said, “We’re glad to see that the suppression of Substack publications on Twitter appears to be over. This is the right move for writers, who deserve the freedom to share their work.”
Substack added that the two companies can work together and support each other in the industry. The company also stated that it is still developing Notes, a feature intended to compete with Twitter, but emphasized that it will be “a new type of space within a subscription network, not a substitute for current social networks.”
“This is very frustrating” Chris Best
At the time of writing, users can retweet, comment to, and like messages that contain a link to a Substack newsletter. In addition, clicking those links won’t result in a safety alert from the platform. However, searching for “substack” still produces results involving the word “newsletter” and does not bring up Substack’s account.
The limitations had been made public by Matt Taibbi, an independent journalist famous for working on Twitter Files. He attributed Twitter’s restriction on users’ ability to share links to his articles on Substack.
Since sharing links to my articles is a primary reason I come to this platform, I was alarmed and asked what was going on. I was given the option of posting articles on Twitter instead.
I’m obviously staying at Substack, and will be moving to Substack Notes next week.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) April 7, 2023
When addressing the situation and claims, Musk stated that Substack attempted to download a great portion of Twitter’s database to bootstrap Notes, its Twitter clone, hence its IP address was flagged and untrusted.
1. Substack links were never blocked. Matt’s statement is false.
2. Substack was trying to download a massive portion of the Twitter database to bootstrap their Twitter clone, so their IP address is obviously untrusted.
3. Turns out Matt is/was an employee of Substack.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 8, 2023
Musk’s reasons attracted the reply of Substack’s CEO, Chris Best, who responded to Elon with a post on Substack Notes that he shared with the Verge. Best stated that Substack had been using Twitter’s APIs for years and was, to the best of their knowledge, in compliance with the terms and conditions of Twitter.
Best further said, “This is very frustrating. It’s one thing to mess with Substack, but quite another to treat writers this way.”
Taibbi also announced his exit from Twitter to Substack’s Notes feature, a move that many other writers have decided to make. Hunter Harris, writer of the Hung Up newsletter on Substack said, “Any Twitter alternative would be great. I want another place just like Twitter that’s not Twitter.” Substack’s new feature is said to be in the beta phase with many writers looking to start using it soon.
According to Substack’s announcement, the Notes feature will enable users to make short updates on it while being able to like, repost, or comment on them just like on Twitter. Additionally, the app will function like Substack’s recommendation feature but will allow writers to recommend more than their publications including posts, quotes, comments, images, and links
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