Why was Mastodon blocked on twitter? And why I think this is wrong

The official account of Mastodon – @joinmastodon – has been blocked on twitter.

The reason is likely to be that the Mastodon account tweeted a link to @ElonJet on Mastodon, which could be considered a violation of the new twitter policy against sharing live locations.

On Wednesday, Twitter suspended the account @ElonJet and the background operator introduced a new policy against sharing live location information. This includes sharing “links to third-party itinerary URL(s).”

Further, it is also currently not possible to post links to many Mastodon instances on twitter. This block is likely related to the same reason.

Opinion
I think the new guideline is difficult, but I haven’t formed a final opinion about it yet, because doxxing is a difficult and complex topic.

But to block a big symbolic account of a competitor iWs just because it links to an account that violates twitter’s doxxing policy is a mistake.

And an even bigger mistake is to block links to Mastodon instances so sweepingly. Removing some links might be justified, but blocking all links that lead to a viable Twitter alternative is more than excessive.


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