Twitter is blocking links to Mastodon

Trying to tweet links to many Mastodon servers results in a message that the site is ‘potentially harmful’

by Jay Peters

Dec 16, 2022, 2:59 AM UTC

It’s not as easy to share where you might go next.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Part Of

The entire story of Twitter / X under Elon Musk

see all updates

Jay Peters is a senior reporter covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme.

Twitter is blocking users from tweeting links to many major servers for Mastodon, one of the most notable Twitter alternatives. The ban was enacted sometime during what’s been a chaotic Thursday evening on the platform after journalists and Mastodon’s own account were unexpectedly suspended.

Attempting to tweet many Mastodon links will result in an error message saying, “We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.” Twitter is currently blocking links to the original mastodon.social server and more than 10 other domains The Verge tested.

The ban on Mastodon follows the recent controversy around @ElonJet, an account that tracks the whereabouts of Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s private jet. On Wednesday, Twitter suspended the @ElonJet Twitter account and soon after suspended the personal account of the person who manages it. Twitter also introduced a new policy that bans people from sharing live locations of another person.

On Thursday, Mastodon’s Twitter account was suspended, and while we don’t know exactly why, the ban happened soon after the account tweeted a link to @ElonJet’s page on Mastodon.

Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, though it has dissolved its press office. Mastodon also hasn’t responded to a request for comment.

Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.