Twitter Restricts Substack Links, 'Twitter Files' Reporter Leaves Platform

Twitter throttled the sharing and posting of links to Substack, a blog website, after Substack announced a new short-form sharing feature.

Details: Last week, Substack announced a new feature called ‘Substack Notes.’ According to the announcement, Substack Notes will allow writers to “post short-form content and share ideas with each other and their readers.” A few days after this, Twitter began restricting the spread of Substack links on the platform, warning users that the links “may be unsafe.” This led journalist Matt Taibbi (Center Bias), the main reporter in the ‘Twitter Files’ saga who publishes through Substack, to announce his departure from Twitter in favor of Substack Notes. On Saturday, Substack tweeted that “the suppression of Substack publications on Twitter appears to be over,” adding, “we believe that Twitter and Substack can continue to coexist and complement each other.”

For Context: Elon Musk took over Twitter in October 2022 and quickly began overhauling the platform, firing top executives. Soon after, Musk gave a handful of journalists, including Taibbi, access to internal messaging and correspondence between Twitter employees and government officials in the lead up to the 2020 election, which would culminate in the Twitter Files reports, which detailed efforts inside Twitter to suppress certain accounts and news stories.

How The Media Covered It: Outlets across the spectrum reported on the story over the weekend and into Monday, with different outlets reporting different Twitter efforts to hinder Substack.