Twitter reportedly preventing users from sharing or visiting Mastodon links

Elon Musk has been in charge of Twitter for several weeks now. The new administration is bringing multiple new features and changes to the platform, although some moves have not been welcomed by all users.

Among the additions Musk has brought and intends to bring are a maximum limit of 4,000 characters per Tweet, different colors for the verification checkmark, and more. You can check all the new features in this story.

Now, Twitter users report that opening Mastodon links from Twitter is throwing a malware, spammy or unsafe page alert before the redirect.

Mastodon is one of the trending names in the conversations about possible alternatives to Twitter.

Multiple users are placing their personal Mastodon profiles links on their Twitter accounts. This way, their Twitter followers could find them on Mastodon as well.

However, it seems that currently Twitter is sending a malware, spammy or unsafe page warning when trying to open a Mastodon link from a Twitter profile or post.

I have a direct link to Mastodon on my profile. It is legit and works perfectly. But when I press on it, this ‘warning’ from Twitter comes up! What an utter bastard Musk is. I just ignored the warning and continued. But I bet no one else will 😡
Source

Tried to add my mastodon profile link to my twitter profile, and it said it was “considered malware”. Simple addition of a space foiled this check, for now.
Source

This does not mean that Twitter is blocking access to Mastodon links. Users can simply ignore the ‘malware warning’ and continue with the redirect.

However, the exact reason why this warning started appearing on the Mastodon links is still unknown. But there are some clues about it in recent events.

Recently, Elon Musk shared a tweak on Twitter’s policies. Going forward, real-time doxing of a person’s exact location is a violation due to the potential security issues it could bring.

Any account doxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info.

Posting locations someone traveled to on a slightly delayed basis isn’t a safety problem, so is ok.
Source

As an example, he revealed that recently a stalker tracked the car where his son was, thinking that Musk would be there too. Elon also shared a video of the event (at this link).

Last night, car carrying lil X in LA was followed by crazy stalker (thinking it was me), who later blocked car from moving & climbed onto hood.

Legal action is being taken against Sweeney & organizations who supported harm to my family.
Source

Turning to Mastodon, their official Twitter account shared a link to the @ElonJet account on Mastodon. For those who don’t know, @ElonJet is an account that follows the exact route of the flights that Elon Musk takes.

@ElonJet account is already banned from Twitter, but Mastodon official Twitter account shared a link to the @ElonJet account on Mastodon.

This was a violation of the new Twitter security policy on ‘doxing locations’, so the Mastodon Twitter account is currently unavailable.

According to Musk, the penalty for doxing locations is 7 days. Therefore, it is possible that the ‘spammy or unsafe page’ warning when opening Mastodon links from Twitter will last for that period of time.

We will be monitoring the situation to update this story as events unfold.

PiunikaWeb started as purely an investigative tech journalism website with main focus on ‘breaking’ or ‘exclusive’ news. In no time, our stories got picked up by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and many others. Want to know more about us? Head here.