Elon Musk’s Twitter Suspends Rival Mastodon Account

Just a day after jet tracker Jack Sweeney made the jump to Mastodon post-Twitter ban, Mastodon’s official Twitter account has been suspended.

Twitter also appears to be blocking tweets linking to many major Mastodon servers; tweets to many Mastodon links result in an error message stating, “We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.” The link ban followed a chaotic Thursday night where many prominent journalists were abruptly suspended from Twitter.

Mastodon, a fast-growing decentralized social network that aims to recreate Twitter’s best parts while nixing its mammoth-sized issues, has increasingly been touted as the go-to alternative to Twitter. Since taking over Twitter in a $44 billion deal, Elon Musk has managed to embroil the social media giant in a series of controversial firings, bans, and reinstatements. Notably, the free-speech champion suspended Ye from Twitter after the rapper tweeted out an image of a swastika intertwined with a Star of David, while also bringing back a burgeoning legion of neo-Nazis, white nationalists, and bigots including Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene back on the platform.

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As celebrities and every day users wave Twitter goodbye amid the drastic changes, Musk (whose reported affinity for booting accounts who annoy him is now a regular theme) has suspended competitor Mastodon’s Twitter account. The move is in marked contrast to Musk’s stance as a “free speech absolutist” who has frequently tweeted like-minded catchphrases like “Sunlight is the best disinfectant” and “Transparency is the key to trust,” yet doesn’t share those same beliefs when it comes to his own decisions at Twitter.

While Mastodon’s Twitter account has been nixed, other social media platforms like Facebook and Tiktok are up for now.

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