Thread by @AkivaMCohen

Hey, #LitigationDisasterTourists: Going to drop a little bit of content here, as a treat.

Twitter is now blocking Mastodon links - to both posts and accounts - as "harmful". Checked it myself, here's the error message that pops up. Give it a shot with any Mastodon link you want.

And yes, it's the Mastodon link. Break it and the tweet sails through just fine

There are a couple of takeaways here.

First, this is an *incredibly* stupid and self-destructive move. These next screenshots are from the @FTC's fact sheets on the Sherman Act (U.S. antitrust law). See the problem?

Blocking a competitor's content from a service that it makes publicly available ... that's just begging for FTC enforcement.

(And no, Twitter doesn't have a monopoly on social media or microblogging. But when it blocks competitors it's attempting to creat one)

Second: Twitter (well, Musk) is absolutely *terrified* about the threat posed by Mastodon. Elon wanted to buy Twitter, not Gab-light or ersatz-Parler. They appear to see Mastodon as a real threat to that.

Third, not that you needed any additional confirmation of it, but Musk's supposed "free speech absolutism" is utter bullshit; if it's speech that he likes or doesn't care about, he's fine with it and allows it on Twitter. If it's speech he dislikes or is harmed by, he doesn't

Which tells you pretty definitively how Elon feels about the racist, antisemitic, homophobic, and other content he allows on here in the name of "free speech", doesn't it.