Many writers have turned to Substack in recent years as a way to directly reach their readers, a sensible decision with cutbacks in media budgets around the world.
On late Thursday night and early Friday morning, Twitter began to apply restrictions towards Substack. Writers were unable to embed tweets in their posts on Substack, and Twitter users were unable to react to tweets containing Substack links.
Substack tweeted on Thursday that they were “investigating reports” about the Twitter embed issues.
We're investigating reports that Twitter embeds and authentication no longer work on Substack. We are actively trying to resolve this and will share updates as additional information becomes available.
— Substack (@SubstackInc) April 6, 2023
On Friday, the company tweeted about the restrictions towards the platform in tweets, saying “Any platform that benefits from writers’ and creators’ work but doesn’t give them con trol over their relationships will inevitably wonder how to respond to the platforms that do.”
A statement from our founders:
Any platform that benefits from writers’ and creators’ work but doesn’t give them control over their relationships will inevitably wonder how to respond to the platforms that do.
— Substack (@SubstackInc) April 7, 2023
Reports indicate the restrictions were put into place because of the introduction of Substack Notes this week, seemingly a comparable service to Twitter.
The restrictions are also hitting plenty of sportswriters, who moved their work to Substack and are now running into issues promoting that work on Twitter.
Here’s a brief sampling of those who have tweeted about the impact of the restrictions.
Joe Posnanski said that Twitter “used to be such a fun place to be.”
In Twitter's relentless effort to drive me away, it now appears that when I link my newsletter stories, you cannot like them or retweet them. Such a shame. This used to be such a fun place to be. https://t.co/a3cMPQxRLS
— Joe Posnanski (@JPosnanski) April 7, 2023
Henry Abbott of True Hoop called out “childish billionaire shenanigans.”
For now it seems you can still link to https://t.co/LIiDCynK7i from Twitter, but that might go away soon because of childish billionaire shenanigans. Please join us over there if you care about fearless NBA journalism, including the kind that annoys childish billionaires.
— Henry Abbott (@TrueHoop) April 7, 2023
Tom Ziller reposted his Substack with a link shortener, saying “Twitter has declared war on Substack.”
https://twitter.com/teamziller/status/1644338610450345986?s=20
Banning direct links to Substack while still allowing those same links to populate if a link shortener is used seems like a half measure to me, a petty decision that doesn’t actually solve much of anything.
But if Twitter restricts tweets with Substack links, it’s reasonable to wonder if it will completely bar tweets with Substack links next. In the past, Twitter barred linking to competing social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Mastodon, and these Substack restrictions have shown that Twitter didn’t take much from the negative reaction to that decision. And if Twitter backtracks in the coming days and begins treating tweets with Substack links like any other tweet, it’s reasonable to wonder just what the hell was the point of implementing the restrictions in the first place.
