Twitter reversed restrictions it placed on content from Substack, a publishing platform that is rolling out a new product called Notes that rivals the prominent social media platform owned by Elon Musk.
After Substack’s founders detailed their plan to launch Notes last week, Mr. Musk’s Twitter labeled links to Substack publications with safety warnings and users were prevented from liking or retweeting certain posts linking to the platform.
Twitter then modified the restrictions amid an outcry of criticism, with Substack saying the suppression of its publishers’ work appeared to have ended.
“We believe that Twitter and Substack can continue to coexist and complement each other,” Substack said Saturday night on Twitter. “We look forward to making Substack Notes available soon, but we expect it to be a new kind of place within a subscription network, not a replacement for existing social networks.”
Substack’s forthcoming Notes tool is intended to give writers the ability to publish short-form content and recommend posts, comments, images, quotes and links on the platform, according to its co-founders Hamish McKenzie, Chris Best and Jairaj Sethi.
The co-founder trio said last week that their forthcoming product may resemble traditional social media, but their new tool had the goal of converting readers into paying subscribers rather than capturing users’ attention to sell advertisements to people.
SEE ALSO: Substack unveils Twitter rival called Notes
As Twitter leveled restrictions on Substack, Mr. Musk lost a devoted follower who chronicled the Twitter Files disclosing internal company messages regarding the U.S. government’s efforts to pressure Twitter’s previous managers to censor conservative and contrarian voices. Writer Matt Taibbi said Friday he would stick to his Substack instead of Twitter after learning of Twitter’s restrictions on Substack.
Mr. Musk said Saturday that Twitter did not completely block Substack links on its platform and accused the publishing platform of siphoning Twitter’s data.
“Substack was trying to download a massive portion of the Twitter database to bootstrap their Twitter clone, so their IP address is obviously untrusted,” Mr. Musk said on Twitter.
Twitter users who click on Substack links do not see a safety warning on Monday, but the social media platform still appears to be treating the potential rival differently. Searches for Substack in Twitter’s search tool return results containing the word “newsletter.”
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.