Elon Musk, Substack CEO Chris Best and journalist Matt Taibbi have been trending on social media recently over a Twitter-related feud. Journalist Matt Taibbi has reportedly quit the social media platform owned by Elon Musk after alleging that Twitter had been blocking users from embedding links on tweets from Substack, an online publishing platform.
Moreover, Taibbi also said that Twitter is also not allowing any engagement of content which has links to Substack, including retweets, or likes. As per Taibbi, Twitter has been blocking and suppressing tweets containing Substack links because Substack has recently released a new ‘Substack Notes', a platform for short-form content, and Twitter sees this as a hostile competitor.
“It turns out Twitter is upset about the new Substack Notes feature, which they see as a hostile rival. I'm staying at Substack," Taibbi said in a Substack post.
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Taibbi also voiced his opinions on Twitter, saying, “since sharing links to my articles is a primary reason I come to this platform, I was alarmed and asked what was going on. I was given the option of posting articles on Twitter instead. I'm obviously staying at Substack and will be moving to Substack Notes next week.”
Of all things: I learned earlier today that Substack links were being blocked on this platform.
April 7, 2023
When I asked why, I was told it's a dispute over the new Substack Notes platform…Elon Musk's Response
However, Twitter's CEO Elon Musk responded to Taibbi's claims by denying that Twitter had been purposely blocking Substack-related content. He also claimed that Matt Taibbi was a Substack employee.
“Substack links were never blocked. Matt's statement is false. Substack was trying to download a massive portion of the Twitter database to bootstrap their Twitter clone, so their IP address is obviously untrusted. Turns out Matt is/was an employee of Substack," Musk tweeted.
1. Substack links were never blocked. Matt's statement is false.
April 8, 2023
2. Substack was trying to download a massive portion of the Twitter database to bootstrap their Twitter clone, so their IP address is obviously untrusted.
3. Turns out Matt is/was an employee of Substack.Substack CEO Chris Best Also Chimed In
At this point, the CEO of Substack, Chris Best also jumped in on the conversation to clear up the issue. The Substack CEO said that this Twitter situation about Substack-related tweets being throttled was ‘very frustrating'. Talking about the issue, Chris Best wrote a post on Substack, saying:
"Substack links have been obviously severely throttled on Twitter. Anyone using the product can see this. We have used the Twitter API, for years, to help writers. We believe we're in compliance with the terms, but if they have any specific concerns we would love to know about them. We'd be happy to address any issues,”- Chris Best, CEO of SubstackMoreover, Chris Best also clarified that journalist Matt Taibbi has never been an employee at Substack, but just a writer who publishes content on the platform and is supported by the readers. Chris Best, along with the other founders of Substack, also released a statement on the situation, saying:
“We're disappointed that Twitter has restricted writers' ability to share their work. Writers deserve the freedom to share links to Substack or anywhere else. This abrupt change is a reminder of why writers deserve a model that puts them in charge, that rewards great work with money, and that protects the free press and free speech,”- Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie and Jairaj Seth (founders of Substack)Not just Matt Taibbi, but other writers who tried to embed their Substack links in their tweets also experience problems. They reportedly encountered an error message, which said ‘Twitter has unexpectedly restricted access to embedding tweets in Substack posts.' Twitter also blocked users from engaging with, liking, or retweeting posts containing Substack links.
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