Twitter has reportedly started throttling and slowing down traffic to a number of websites and competing social networks. As reported by The Washington Post, Twitter is using its long-standing t.co link shorter to throttle traffic to Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Substack, the New York Times, and more.
The common theme among all of the affected websites and services is that they are ones for which “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk has a strong and vocal disdain. Musk is currently embroiled in a public war of words with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg about a potential cage fight between the two.
Among the affected websites and services are: Instagram, Facebook, Threads, Substack, the New York Times, and Bluesky. Twitter has implemented the throttling using its t.co link shortener, which is used to process all links posted to Twitter. When you click on a link to one of the affected websites, there’s a noticeable five-second delay before the actual website’s URL starts to load.
Twitter’s outbound link throttling was first spotted by a user on Hacker News yesterday, and The Washington Post conducted its own analysis to confirm the findings.
In a statement, a spokesman for the New York Times corroborated:
Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesman for the Times, said in a statement that the news outlet has “made similar observations of our own” about the systemic delays and “not received any explanation from the platform about this move.”
“While we don’t know the rationale behind the application of this time delay, we would be concerned by targeted pressure applied to any news organization for unclear reasons,” he said.
The report also adds: “A person familiar with the Times’ operations said the news organization had seen a drop in traffic from X since the delays began.”
Substack co-founders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi also added:
“Substack was created in direct response to this kind of behavior by social media companies,” they said. “Writers cannot build sustainable businesses if their connection to their audience depends on unreliable platforms that have proven they are willing to make changes that are hostile to the people who use them.”
It’s impossible to know how many websites and services are affected by Twitter’s new throttling practice. Musk, of course, has a personal vendetta against countless people and companies – including 9to5Mac and Electrek. As of right now, however, it appears we’re unaffected by this throttling.
The Washington Post points out that websites, including its own, Fox News, Mastodon, and YouTube are unaffected by this new throttling implementation.
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