Twitter restricts posts featuring Substack after it rolls out rival service
Christopher Hutton
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Twitter is limiting any tweets that include links to Substack in an apparent response to the blogging platform’s launch of a competitor.
Users reported on Friday that any tweets with Substack links in them could not be liked, retweeted, or replied to.
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The restrictions were imposed shortly after Substack, a platform for newsletters, announced Notes, its own Twitter competitor. Twitter also restricted the ability of users to embed tweets onto Substack the day before.
“We’re investigating reports that Twitter embeds and authentication no longer work on Substack,” Substack stated on Thursday after users reported that embedding tweets into Substack posts did not work. “We are actively trying to resolve this and will share updates as additional information becomes available.” The Washington Examiner tested the feature and found that direct Substack links were limited, while those with custom URLs were unaffected.
Substack did not respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.
The link blocking is a sudden change for Twitter in light of both companies’ views on speech. Twitter owner Elon Musk held similar opinions on allowing all forms of speech on Twitter’s platform as Substack, which has presented itself as a less restrictive alternative to legacy media and social media. It allowed several popular Substack writers, including Matt Taibbi, to take the lead in reporting on internal documents from Twitter, often referred to as the Twitter Files.
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Several companies have also informed users that they had to cut out or paywall select features due to Musk placing the Twitter API behind a paywall.
Twitter did not respond to requests for comment.