Twitter and Elon Musk is blocking content from a Twitter alternative again.
Users of Twitter and Threads recently discovered that Twitter is selectively blocking tweets containing links to Threads, making any searches for them return with zero results despite having plenty of them.
Twitter CTO and owner Elon Musk had expressed his distaste for Threads and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg for "cheating" to get ahead in the microblogging platform market.
Twitter - Threads Block Details
Twitter users trying to find tweets with links to Threads are having a hard time looking for them using the conventional way. According to a report from The Verge, a Threads post from Andy Baio stated that Twitter is selectively blocking searches for tweets with links to Threads "even though they allow posting Threads URLs (for now)."
Based on the picture Baio posted, they used the "URL" search operator, which allows Twitter users to see search results for tweets with links to a specific URL, even when they're shortened. Using this search operator to look for tweets with links to Threads comes up with nothing despite the fact that these tweets do exist and that there is plenty to go around.
Searching for "threads.net" with the URL operator came up with irrelevant results from users with their Threads account in their display name or talking about Threads without providing a link to the newly-launched microblogging platform.
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There is a way to circumvent the blocking, though. Baio mentioned that users can quote the domain name and remove the period to bypass the block. Adding "filter:follows" and clocking Latest will display tweets with Threads links from people they follow.
While it is still possible to find tweets with links to Threads on Twitter - users need to get creative to find them - what's not clear is if Twitter's selective blocking is intentional or not. Unfortunately, inquiries made to Twitter's press line were replied to with the customary poop emoji auto-reply.
Twitter/Elon Strikes Back?
Twitter blocking links to its alternatives happened in the past. It not only blocked users from tweeting links to many Mastodon servers, but it also called the links "potentially harmful" when users tweet too many of them.
Similarly, he also limited how users could engage with posts with links to Substack just before it launches its Notes microblogging service. Users were unable to like, reply to, or retweet tweets containing Substack URLs; Twitter then started marking Substack links as unsafe.
However, the blocking of tweets with Threads links may have been a tad personal for Musk. You may recall that Musk is threatening to sue Meta because Threads is similar to Twitter in a lot of significant ways. He claims that Meta hired former Twitter employees to help with Threads' development, and what Zuckerberg did was cheating, not competing, as he put in one of his recent tweets about the platform.
He also seems to have taken Threads' launch a bit too personally - he called Zuckerberg a "cuck," and that they should engage in comparing measurements to see who has the biggest stick in social media.
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