[romwell]

The policy says:

>At both the Tweet level and the account level, we will remove any free promotion of prohibited 3rd-party social media platforms, *such as linking out (i.e. using URLs) to any of the below platforms on Twitter*, or *providing your handle without a URL*

Notice that *all* definitions and examples of "promotion" specifically involve having your URL or username in a tweet.

The "non-technical means" of bypassing policy are still about communicating the username in a tweet.

It is a ludicrous policy, but alleging that it prohibits even mentioning existence of other accounts is a ludicrous interpretation of the ludicrous policy.

"You can find my contact info on my website" is a violation under this interpretation.

As is stating "Twitter isn't the only way to reach me"... and having any off-twitter links (God forbid your FB account is reachable via some sequence of clicks from there!).

So much for the "free speech absolutist" though.

[BryantD]

I’d agree with you except that linktr.ee was also referenced as a violation. That’s the part that makes me pretty sure that his original intention was to cover links to links.

Hey, can we have this discussion without referring to disagreements as “ludicrous”? It’s a moot point now, but still.

[romwell]

>I’d agree with you except that linktr.ee was also referenced as a violation.

It was listed as a forbidden platform.

Paul Graham's personal website was not listed as a forbidden platform.

* We can't infer from the policy that Paul Graham's personal website can't be linked to, or mentioned.

* We can't infer from the policy that merely talking about forbidden platforms (including Mastodon and Link Tree) is a violation, unless a link or a username is provided.

* Therefore, Paul G saying that he has a website with a Mastodon link on it isn't a violation of the policy.

Generalizing from LinkTree to any website is unwarranted.

Further, such a generalization effectively prohibits links outside Twitter (since Facebook can be reached from nearly every page out there via some sequence of clicks). But that's beside the point.