Twitter suspends account of Paul Graham, a VC supportive of Musk, after he tweets about Mastodon hyperlink
Paul Graham, a extensively revered enterprise capitalist who’s been supportive Elon Musk’s efforts at Twitter, had his Twitter account suspended on Sunday.
The suspension adopted a tweet wherein Graham wrote: “That is the final straw. I quit. You’ll find a hyperlink to my new Mastodon profile on my website.”
In that tweet, he linked to a new Twitter coverage that forbids customers from linking out to competing social media platforms, together with Fb, Instagram, Mastodon, Fact Social, Tribel, Submit, and Nostr.
That coverage additionally forbids utilizing varied methods to get across the rule, comparable to writing “instagram dot com/username” to keep away from creating an precise hyperlink.
It seems Graham’s account was suspended as a result of he wrote, “You’ll find a hyperlink to my new Mastodon profile on my website.” That may very well be deemed by Twitter for example of a workaround.
Fortune reached out to Twitter however didn’t obtain a right away reply; nevertheless, after we reached out to the corporate, Graham’s account was unsuspended.
Expertise writer Gergely Orosz famous the suspension on his personal Twitter account, writing, “Paul Graham – founding father of Y Combinator, and somebody who was supportive of Elon Musk because the Twitter takeover – introduced he’s taking a break from Twitter, and instructed individuals can discover his Mastodon account on his web site. He was banned a number of hours later. I can’t imagine it…”
Howard Lerman, a co-founder of a number of tech startups, additionally expressed shock, tweeting: “Paul Graham (previously @paulg) defines actually each attribute one may hope for on a social community: Profound, civil, considerate, sincere, direct, well mannered, energetic, attentive to all, inclusive. I’m positive I missed loads of issues he’s. And I’m actually going to him him on right here.”
Over on Mastodon, extensively thought-about a substitute for Twitter for customers uninterested in Musk’s chaos, Graham himself remained characteristically diplomatic, writing: “I haven’t ‘left Twitter.’ I simply don’t need to hold utilizing it whereas it’s banning hyperlinks to different websites. Plus given the best way issues are going, it appeared like time to study extra about Mastodon.”
He added, “FWIW I nonetheless hope Elon succeeds with Twitter. Why want failure on anybody? However for me, not letting individuals publish hyperlinks to their different accounts was simply an excessive amount of.”
Others commented on the suspension as effectively. Alexis Ohanian, founder and normal accomplice of VC agency 776, famous Graham’s stature as Silicon Valley “royalty.” He tweeted Sunday: “Wild. @PaulG bought suspended (for *sending of us to his web site for a hyperlink to his mastadon). That is gonna get actually, actually fascinating. PG is SV royalty.”
