Drew HarwellNew: Elon Musk’s X is throttling traffic to news websites and competitors he dislikes. Five-second delays on links to New York Times, Reuters, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky and Substack. Most other sites we tested have zero delay https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/08/15/twitter-x-links-delayed/ @jeremybmerrill
First flagged on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37130060
Substack’s cofounders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi tell me in a statement: "Substack was created in direct response to this kind of behavior by social media companies" https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/08/15/twitter-x-links-delayed/
New York Times spokesman Charlie Stadtlander tells me in a statement: "We have not received any explanation from the platform about this move" and "would be concerned by targeted pressure applied to any news organization for unclear reasons"
Staid Winnow@drewharwell If the NYT does not like the terms, they do not have to be on X.
Free market, bitches!
Oh, the argument now is Free Speech must be free* to sacred institutions.
* Not applicable to consumers of news.
gnaddrig@staidwinnow @drewharwell Who said it is about their own Twitter presence? The delay will apply to any links to NYT content posted by anyone, right?