Vox Populi, Vox Dei?

A drama-filled weekend at Twitter—clearly because five-day work weeks are not for the hardcore—was highlighted by a poll tweeted by Elon Musk asking if he should step down as “Chief Twit.”

A total of 17,502,391 accounts weighed in—no estimate was presented on how many were bots—and 57.4% (10,063,044) voted yes, versus 42.5%) (7,439,347) who said no.

The poll appeared to be triggered by the reaction to a sudden policy change Twitter revealed Sunday banning links to rival social platforms Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Nostr, Post, Tribel and Truth Social, as well as third-party social media link aggregators Linktree and Lnk.Bio.

Twitter said in a since deleted thread of Twitter Support tweets Sunday, “We will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter. Specifically, we will remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames for the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post.”

The company went into further details in a since-deleted policy update, preserved by Wayback Machine, saying, “Twitter is where the public conversation is happening, and where people from all over the globe come to promote their businesses, art, ideas and more. We know that many of our users may be active on other social media platforms; however, going forward, Twitter will no longer allow free promotion of specific social media platforms on Twitter.”

Twitter provided the following examples of tweets that would violate the new policy:

• follow me @username on Instagram
• username@mastodon.social
• check out my profile on Facebook – facebook.com/username

The company said accounts used for the main purpose of promoting content on another social platform faced suspension, and attempts to skirt the new restrictions “through technical or non-technical means” such as cloaking or plaintext obfuscation violated its policy.

Examples provided were spelling out dot in order to avoid creating a URL within a tweet and sharing screenshots of handles on platforms covered by the policy.

Twitter said users were still able to cross-post content from other platforms, including those on the prohibited list, adding, “We allow paid advertisement/promotion for any of the prohibited social media platforms.”

Repercussions for violations of this new policy included requiring the deletion of tweets or temporarily locking accounts, with repeat offenders facing permanent suspension, and Twitter wrote, “If violations of this policy are included in your bio and/or account name, we will temporarily suspend your account and require changes to your profile to no longer be in violation. Subsequent violations may result in permanent suspension.”

Musk said in a tweet late Sunday, “Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again.”

On the Twitter Blue front, Musk tweeted Saturday that block and mute signals from Blue Verified users—and not Legacy Blue users—will be incorporated as downvotes, adding, “To be clear, all user actions will factor into a NN (neural network) model for a tweet and the account tweeting, including positive actions”

He also said Twitter will make it easier for people to see tweets from only users they follow, along with other curation options.

All of this follows the controversy late last week when several journalists were banned from the platform in a dust-up related to their coverage of the banning of an account that shared publicly available tracking information for Musk’s private jet, with most of the affected members of the media reinstated shortly thereafter.