this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2023
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Elon Musk’s X is throttling traffic to news and websites he dislikes | The site formerly known as Twitter has added a five-second delay when a user clicks on a shortened link to the New York Times,... (www.washingtonpost.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Elon Musk’s X is throttling traffic to news and websites he dislikes | The site formerly known as Twitter has added a five-second delay when a user clicks on a shortened link to the New York Times,...::undefined

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The delayed websites included X’s online rivals Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky and Substack, as well as the Reuters wire service and the Times.

On Tuesday afternoon, hours after this story was first published, X began reversing the throttling on some of the sites, dropping the delay times back to zero.

Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesman for the Times, said in a statement that the news outlet has “made similar observations of our own” about the systemic delays and “not received any explanation from the platform about this move.”

“While we don’t know the rationale behind the application of this time delay, we would be concerned by targeted pressure applied to any news organization for unclear reasons,” he said.

“Writers cannot build sustainable businesses if their connection to their audience depends on unreliable platforms that have proven they are willing to make changes that are hostile to the people who use them.”

Links to Facebook, Instagram and the new microblogging service Threads were all throttled; all three are owned by Meta, whose founder and chief Mark Zuckerberg has been locked in an ongoing online feud with Musk over not-yet-existent plans for a mixed-martial-arts fight.

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