‘Free Speech Absolutist’ Elon Musk Accused of ‘Throttling Traffic’ to Media Outlets He ‘Dislikes’
AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File
The social media platform once known as Twitter has reportedly started impeding users from accessing links to media organizations and online competitors that company owner Elon Musk personally “dislikes.”
The Washington Post conducted an analysis that documented a five-second load time delay occuring when X users click on links to certain websites like Facebook, Substack, Reuters, and The New York Times. The common thread between these “targeted websites”? They are either rival services to X, or they are news outlets that Musk has publicly attacked.
Mediaite tested the load time on a New York Times article and found it to be considerable slower — about five seconds slower — than the load time on other sites.
From the Post report:
The delay affects the t.co domain, a link-shortening service that X uses to process every link posted to the website. Traffic is routed through the middleman service, allowing X to track — and in this case throttle — activity to the target website, potentially taking away traffic and ad revenue from businesses Musk personally dislikes.
The Post’s analysis found that links to most other sites were unaffected — including those to The Washington Post, Fox News and social media services such as Mastodon and YouTube — with the shortened links being routed to their final destination in a second or less.
The Post noted that Reuters recently published a report that accused Tesla of suppressing complaints that the company overinflated its claims on how far its cars can travel before needing a recharge. As for the Times, the newspaper was one of the first outlets to be stripped of its verified checkmark, and Musk has bashed the Gray Lady as “propaganda” and “the Twitter equivalent of diarrhea.”
Ever since he took ownership of the company, Musk has used X to punish accounts he doesn’t approve of. Musk declined to comment on the Post’s reporting even though it directly contradicts his shaky attempts to portray himself as a champion of free speech.
