Twitter stops throttling tweets with Substack links

In a reversal of a limitation the platform put in place earlier in the week, Twitter is once again allowing users to interact with Substack links freely. At least for the time being, you can retweet, reply to and like posts that feature a link to a Substack newsletter. The platform also won’t issue a safety warning if you click those links. However, as of the writing of this article, searching for “substack” still produces results involving the word “newsletter.”

“We’re glad to see that the suppression of Substack publications on Twitter appears to be over,” Substack tweeted late Saturday evening. “This is the right move for writers, who deserve the freedom to share their work.”

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 (@SubstackInc) April 9, 2023

Twitter began throttling Substack links mere days after the company announced Substack Notes, a feature that adds a Twitter-like feed to the newsletter platform. When Elon Musk eventually addressed the situation, he claimed Substack was “trying to download a massive portion of the Twitter database to bootstrap their Twitter clone,” an assertion Chris Best, the CEO of Substrack, strongly denied. “None of this is true,” he said in a Notes post shared with The Verge. “This is very frustrating. It’s one thing to mess with Substack, but quite another to treat writers this way.” Among other outcomes, Musk’s decision to limit access to Substack led to a feud with Matt Taibbi, the journalist who worked on the so-called “Twitter Files.” On Friday afternoon, Taibbi said he was quitting Twitter over the restrictions.

For it is worth, this week’s episode doesn’t seem to have convinced Substack to alter its plans around Notes. “We look forward to making Substack Notes available soon,” the company said. “But we expect it to be a new kind of place within a subscription network, not a replacement for existing social networks.”

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