Twitter

New rule alert at Twitter -- Elon Musk apparently wants to keep the bird app exclusive, so he's banning the promotion of any other social media accounts ... including via Linktree.

The official Twitter Support account made the announcement Sunday, writing ... "We recognize that many of our users are active on other social media platforms. However, we will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter."

They add, "Specifically, we will remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames for the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post."

Some clarification ... Twitter Support notes this doesn't mean they're banning the use of links to other social media sites, including cross-posting of content (like throwing up an IG link on Twitter, for instance). What it sounds like they won't stand for now ... unadulterated plugging of one's other accounts that might lead Twitter users away from the platform.

Several users have already gotten into the weeds of Twitter's new policy, and they appear to confirm this will apply to Linktree URLs -- which allow people to go and find someone's entire social media presence, among other useful links. Content creators use Linktree quite often.

Twitter also says that phrases like "Follow me on XXXX" will likely get someone banned as well. This has been happening a lot lately under the new Musk regime -- folks have been touting their Mastadon accounts, and others, as prominent users have migrated over.

It's just the latest crackdown on Elon's watch. Remember, he's been suspending journos who cover/criticize him ... handing down bans and reversals of those bans on the drop of a dime.

Elon Musk has let several prominent journalists out of Twitter jail ... he just reinstated their suspended accounts for doxxing him -- or so he claimed.

The Twitter honcho released a statement late Friday ... "The people have spoken. Accounts that doxxed my location will have their suspensions lifted now."

Of course, Musk is referring to a Twitter poll he took Thursday night, asking voters if the reporters' accounts should be promptly restored or put on ice for 7 days. A majority of people -- over 58 percent -- voted to have the accounts reinstated immediately. So Elon obliged.

As we reported ... Musk came under fire earlier this week when he suspended the accounts of at least 7 journalists, including Donie O'Sullivan (CNN), Drew Harwell (Washington Post), Matt Binder (Mashable), Ryan Mac (New York Times) and Micah Lee (The Intercept). The Chief Twit accused the reporters of tracking his private jet using publicly available data and doxing him online by disclosing his personal details and whereabouts.

But, the journalists insisted they never published Elon's private information, and believe the real reason Musk temporarily shut down their accounts is because of their unfavorable coverage of him. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff also blasted Musk for suspending the accounts.

Elon Musk is dropping the hammer on Twitter, and he's in no mood to talk about it -- he fled an online chat as soon as upset reporters tried to grill him about suspending a bunch of journalists.

The Chief Twit jumped into a Twitter Spaces chat Thursday evening to lay out his new rules about real-time doxxing -- namely that anyone who shares real-time locations of individuals will be immediately suspended from the bird app.

After some back-and-forth in the chat, Elon finally said, "If you Dox you get suspended, end of story, that's it." Moments later, he hopped out of the chat without announcing his exit.

As we reported, Musk shut down a handful of reporters' Twitter accounts Thursday without explanation. Some of them say they never posted any location info, so they felt the suspensions were really due to negative reporting on Elon.

During the abbreviated chat, journalists challenged him -- pointing out he was shutting down journalism in the same way he's criticized the Twitter regime of killing stories about Hunter Biden. Y'know, the whole free speech thing Musk said he wanted to champion when he dropped $44 billion to buy Twitter.

BTW, Elon asked his followers when, if at all, he should unsuspend the accounts who doxxed him ... but he clearly wasn't a fan of the results, saying "Sorry, too many options. Will redo poll."

He did redo it, but was still met with a majority saying he should unsuspend now. He's also reportedly shut down all Twitter Spaces chats since last night. 😬

Elon Musk is hitting journalists who make a living reporting on the billionaire where he can ... silencing their Twitter accounts.

The new owner of the bird app is suspending Twitter accounts for reporters from major news outlets like The New York Times, Washington Post and CNN ... plus independent journos and folks who report for Mashable and The Intercept.

Among those losing their ability to tweet about Elon ... Donie O'Sullivan from CNN, Drew Harwell from WaPo, Matt Binder from Mashable, Ryan Mac from NYT, Micah Lee from The Intercept, plus Keith Olbermann and Aaron Rupar.

Lots of folks getting the boot have been writing and tweeting critically about Elon ... but the fact is Musk owns Twitter so he can do what he wants with his private company.

Of course, Elon's claimed he's a champion of free speech ... and some folks say that's just not jiving with suspensions for reporters.

Here's what some of those banned reporters are seeing when they try to log in to their Twitter accounts ... a message telling them their account is permanently suspended for violating Twitter rules.

Elon's been changing Twitter terms of service on the fly ... and it's unclear what rules the journalists supposedly violated to earn a suspension.

It appears more accounts are being suspended.

Elon Musk claims a "crazy stalker" put his son in danger, and now the Twitter honcho's threatening to take legal action against someone who's publicly exposing his location ... which he believes led to the attack.

Elon tweeted Wednesday night that a car carrying his 2-year-old boy, "lil X," was followed by an unknown person ... adding they later blocked the vehicle and climbed onto the hood.

He also posted a clip of the alleged stalker, showing their license plate -- asking "Anyone recognize this person or car?"

In a clearly related move, he says legal action's being taken against programmer Jack Sweeney, the person who started Elon's flight-tracking account in 2020.

This call-out came shortly after Elon dropped a new rule for Twitter -- "Any account doxxing 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."

Elon notes people are allowed to post locations someone's been at on a "slightly delayed basis," saying it isn't a safety problem.

Jack's account has since been suspended, and many online see that move as a sign Elon's free speech pledge is a one-way street -- as soon as the "free speech" harmed him, he shut it down.

Diddy is reaffirming his love for Yung Miami following Akademiks' labeling of the City Girl as a "side chick" after the Bad Boy mogul announced he just welcomed a new baby girl into the world.

In a pair of tweets Tuesday, Diddy denied Miami was ever a side chick ... even dishing out a new nickname for her -- "Shawty Wop."

Diddy also promised to pop up at any house of someone who "hurts" those he loves ... a fitting threat because Akademiks has been inviting people to visit him in Jersey.

Ak and Miami were tussling on Twitter Monday ... when "Grown-ish" actor Luka Sabbat entered the chat -- only to be dragged for filth by Ak on Twitch during a quasi-homophobic rant.

As we told you earlier in the week ... Diddy welcomed a new baby girl by the name of Love Combs with 28-year-old cyber security pro Dana Tran.

Twitter is dumping more than just thousands of employees ... the company is also unloading hundreds of office supplies in an online auction.

The items -- ranging from a Twitter blue logo to computers and chargeable exercise bikes -- all went up Sunday with prices starting at $25. Of course, that's expected to rise -- especially since some of it is super pricey kitchen equipment.

There's also a Semi-Automatic Espresso Machine with a pump, a high-performance Task chair ... and a Sculpture Planter in the shape of a huge "@."

As you know, Elon Musk became CEO after buying the app for $44 billion. You'll recall, nearly half the workforce was slashed, and the fired employees filed suit against EM for violating California and federal laws.

Elon Musk is sick of all the leaks plaguing Twitter lately -- so he's threatening to enforce the company's NDAs with his workforce ... at the risk of potential litigation.

The Chief Twit reportedly fired off an email to employees that detailed ramifications if they were found to be leaking sensitive insider info to the media ... this according to Platformer's Zoë Schiffer, who says she obtained a copy of the correspondence and quoted from it.

Schiffer says the email from EM begins ... "As evidenced by the many detailed leaks of confidential Twitter information, a few people at our company continue to act in a manner contrary to the company's interests and in violation of their NDA."

Elon reportedly goes on to say this, "This will be said only once: If you clearly and deliberately violate the NDA that you signed when you joined, you accept liability to the full extent of the law & Twitter will immediately seek damages."

There is a little wiggle room, it seems ... as Elon apparently told his fellow birds that an accidental or occasional slipup was understandable -- but also made a distinction between that and what he says has been happening en masse ... outright squealing to the press.

There has, in fact, been a lot of news about how Twitter's operating under Elon's regime -- with word of one of the HQs being turned into a motel of sorts, the mass firings/attempted rehires ... and, of course, the scarecrow moderation council he plans to install.

Some have called out EM as a hypocrite for trying to silence his own staff, while continuing to explicitly leak internal Twitter files to journos like Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss.

Elon Musk has reportedly been turning Twitter's office space into sleeping spaces for employees putting in extra time -- and he's pissed the city of S.F. is looking into whether or not the new setup violates any codes.

Twitter's CEO fired back to a report Tuesday that said S.F.'s department of building inspection would be launching an investigation into claims that parts of the company's HQ were retrofitted to include makeshift bedrooms.

Forbes reported mattresses were set up in some Twitter office rooms, with other homey modifications. Recent reports also suggested a handful of employees were spending the night due to the intense nature of the job and long hours under Musk's new regime.

Well, Elon didn't take too kindly to the idea of San Fran cracking down -- responding to a tweet about the news by writing … "So city of SF attacks companies providing beds for tired employees instead of making sure kids are safe from fentanyl. Where are your priorities @LondonBreed!?" London Breed is S.F.'s mayor.

He also attached an article about a toddler who OD'd after coming across fentanyl on a playground. Luckily, the kid survived.

One thing Elon's tweet didn't address though ... whether or not the employee bedrooms exist.

PETA wants Elon Musk's animal testing at Neuralink shut down, and says the best way to make it happen is for millions of bird app users to speak up, and against the Chief Twit.

A rep for the animal rights org. tells TMZ ... "Neuralink and the University of California-Davis are responsible for the deaths of at least 15 monkeys because of Elon Musk’s quest to stick a chip in a human’s brain."

PETA says this kind of experimentation dates back at least 2 decades at other companies -- but notes, in just a few short years, Neuralink is piling up animal corpses all on its own.

The org adds, "Experimenting on and killing animals is never good science, and since monkeys in Musk’s experiments have also died for reasons that have nothing to do with these studies, the laboratory should be closed."

PETA's solution, we're told, includes urging the USDA's inspector general to get to the bottom of why animal protection laws were allegedly violated -- as cited in a Reuters report, which detailed in-house workers' concerns with the growing number of animal tests and deaths. Reuters says at least 1,500 animals have been killed at Neuralink since 2018, in the advancement of research, and to meet Musk's alleged timetable for the chip.

Now, PETA's looking to put the pressure on Elon by using his new $44 billion toy against him -- it's calling on Twitter users to flood the app with protest tweets tagging @elonmusk and his company @neuralink.

Neuralink has made promises of being able to help combat paralysis by allowing patients to simply think out a task that machinery would then complete.

Earlier this year, there was some indication Elon would start human trials, but it doesn't seem that's happened yet.

Haley Lu Richardson is well aware the Internet despises her 'White Lotus' character's fashion sense ... which really sucks for her, because she actually made part of that wardrobe!

We got the actress -- who plays Portia on HBO's hit drama -- Monday night outside Jimmy Kimmel's L.A. studio, and she was pretty excited to chat with us about her character's many many haters ... as she was signing autographs, mind you.

Haley plays the suffering assistant to Jennifer Coolidge's character -- and while it looks like a crappy job on the show, she says JC is so freakin' cool IRL ... being her real assistant would be sweet.

As for the hotly-debated Twitter topic of Haley's wardrobe -- she broke some news with us about one particular item that's been ripped to shreds, metaphorically, that is.

Although most people poking fun at Portia's fits are just joking around ... Haley tells us she actually handcrafted the hat everyone seems to love to hate.

So, how's she handling the criticism? Check out the clip, but we'll just say ... actors are real people with real feelings!!!

Elon Musk is above doing autographs at this point in his life -- something the paparazzi learned the hard (and cold) way while trying to catch the dude out in the wild.

The Twitter chief landed at Dulles International Airport Saturday night -- just outside of D.C. proper -- and while he was getting into a waiting Tesla with a security detail in tow ... he was greeted by a swarm of photographers outside who apparently wanted his John Hancock.

You gotta watch this, 'cause it's pretty hilarious ... all the paps are begging EM for him to come over and give them the time of day, explicitly noting -- but sir, it's CHRISTMAS! 😂

Despite their pleas ... Elon tells 'em -- sorry, fellas, no more signings. When he's asked if he means ever again, he confirms. So, yeah ... a little Scrooge-y for sure -- but hey, the guy's super busy these days and his celebrity has increased ten-fold over the past 6 or 7 years.

It's pretty interesting, as Elon normally tends to hold court with paps and shoots the s*** with them, offering off-the-cuff answers on a number of issues -- including crypto, 'SNL,' and his own companies. His MOTS interviews have always been light-hearted and chill, too.

In the span of a year, though ... he's acquired Twitter, and become a lightning rod figure -- and it seems he doesn't wanna be hit with harder questions than he's ever faced before.

Our own photog, who was in the crush, was trying to ask about politics -- but Elon clearly doesn't wanna play ball anymore ... and made a new rule. Makes sense if you think about it ... especially seeing how, on Saturday night, he told a group of Twitter Space listeners that the risk of assassination was a legit threat facing him these days.

When you reach that threshold as an A-lister ... the move is to snub and keep it moving.

The reason there's so many unlikeable female leads is because Hollywood is all in on "Mary Sue" -- so says one writer ... whose hot take is getting blasted as straight-up misogyny.

A fella named Joshua Lisec -- who's ghostwritten a ton of books over the years -- took to Twitter this week to outline a very long argument he firmly believes in ... namely, that the literary "Mary Sue" archetype is alive and thriving in modern-day entertainment, despite the fact people aren't really into these strong fictional heroines who kick ass out of nowhere.

His words ... not ours.

Essentially, this boils down to characters like Rey (Daisy Ridley, 'Star Wars'), Galadriel (Morfydd Clark, "Rings of Power"), Carol Danvers (Brie Larson, "Captain Marvel") and even Bo Peep (Annie Potts, "Toy Story 4") and others who start out in a new plot as bad to the bone ... despite a lack of training/backstory to explain how they came to be so strong.

Now, whether that definition of a typical Mary Sue actually applies to the above-mentioned characters -- and other female leads in action movies in general -- is what's at debate here.

Lisec's thread has gone viral, with a ton of backlash coming his way for what a lot of people claim is a convoluted and long-winded way to say ... he simply doesn't like women, and can't stand the idea of a female character being anything other than a damsel in distress.

There are others poking holes in his theory ... at one point during which he makes comparisons to classic male leads whom he thinks were properly fleshed out (Luke Skywalker, etc.) Some are offering examples of countless traditional male heroes who've emerged with unexplained powers ... noting Mary Sue is a dog whistle to attack women.

As for why this convo is even taking place ... well, it appears there are some, like Lisec, who feel there is, in fact, a push from Hollywood lately for "strong female leads" who emerge as heroes without a bona fide, solid setup. The forthcoming 'Indiana Jones' flick appears to be positioning Phoebe Waller-Bridge's character for exactly that (the "new Indy" post-Ford).

This isn't a sentiment that's super fringe either ... Emily Blunt has denounced the "strong female lead" label -- basically saying it was being done to death, and that she's over it.

Elon Musk is doing a new file dump that he says reflects Twitter's alleged efforts to suppress stories about Hunter Biden's laptop in 2020 ... causing a lot of outrage in right wing circles.

The Twit in Chief is set to follow up with another day of #TwitterFiles Saturday, which took the bird app by storm over the past 24 hours ... this after the initial batch detailed alleged correspondence between former Twitter staffers and execs, suggesting they were censoring negative HB news.

Specifically, the internal emails cited by journo Matt Taibbi show how Twitter's ex-head honchos apparently went out of their way to hide links to a story by the New York Post.

Published about a month before the election, it was touted as a bombshell report -- which purported to describe messages the NYP says it retrieved from Hunter's forsaken laptop ... and one of those seems to indicate Ukrainian gas bigwigs were trying to meet President Biden via his son, who was in business with these folks at the time (around 2015 or so).

When this went live in 2020, any attempts to tweet links to the story were barred en masse on Twitter ... and now, these #TwitterFiles pretty much seem to confirm it was, in fact, a coordinated effort in-house. The more troubling part, though ... some of the emails appear to imply that Twitter was actually in touch with Biden's campaign team ... and conceding to their requests to kill the story, as they claimed the information had been hacked/stolen.

Twitter obliged, citing its terms and conditions to justify the move -- not to mention the fact the info discussed hadn't been independently verified -- but since then ... a majority of the materials on the laptop were authenticated as legit. The laptop was also deemed abandoned property after somebody turned it into a shop in 2019 ... eventually finding its way into the hands of conservative operatives who ran with it and publicized its salacious contents.

In the end, however, the Hunter Biden chatter really amounted to nothing in the big picture.

There's been a lot of handwringing in and around the GOP over this for a full two years -- but now that these apparent revelations are coming to light ... many are calling for congressional hearings and investigations into what they characterize as corruption/election interference. Basically, their argument is ... Twitter blocked something that could've, perhaps, swung the election in Trump's favor -- and they're calling on POTUS to answer for it.

Bella Thorne is not only friends with Elon Musk, she's also a big fan of his decision to temporarily kick Kanye West off the platform for spreading antisemitic hate.

We caught up with Bella in Miami, where she's hitting Art Basel, and asked about her relationship with the Chief Twit, and her thoughts about him shutting down Ye. Although Elon's said he wants Twitter to be HQ for free speech ... she's certain Ye's Thursday ranting is NOT that.

Bella says Elon has every right to ban the rapper's account, because IF that's what free speech is then he shouldn't have it ... and neither should anybody else.

You'll recall, Kanye was suspended from Twitter for inciting violence ... after posting a highly offensive mashup of a Nazi swastika with a Star of David. Of course, that came immediately on the heels of countless other vicious remarks he's made.

ICYMI, Elon and Bella had people talking about their unlikely friendship when he hit up her Halloween party with his ex-wife Justine Wilson.

Bella made it clear she's fond of the guy, calling him "very cool."

Lamar Jackson says he's sorry for sending a vulgar tweet following the Ravens' emotional 28-27 loss to the Jaguars last Sunday ... admitting on Friday he was just "bitter" about the L.

"I apologize if I hurt feelings out there," Jackson said when addressing reporters for the first time since pressing send on the tweet.

Jackson initially fired off the obscene response minutes after Baltimore's defeat ... after a Twitter user said the Ravens should not sign the QB to a lengthy -- and lucrative -- new contract.

"Boy STFU y'all be cappin too much on this app mf never smelt a football field," he said ... before ending the tweet with, "never did s*** but eat a d***."

Ravens head coach John Harbaugh said he spoke to Jackson over it all on Monday ... and called it "out of character for him."

Jackson said he deleted the tweet, which remained on his page for about 3 hours, after his girlfriend encouraged him to take it down.

She "was like, I think you should delete it," LJ said. "I'm like, 'All right 'cause I don't know if I hurt somebody's feelings,' so I did. That's just what it was. That's why I deleted it."

Jackson said he hasn't reached out to the fan since the incident, but explained there's no bad blood between him and the individual.

"What I take from this experience ... don't say nothing on Twitter," Jackson said. "Don't say what I said 'cause it's kids watching. Don't need the kids saying that but just watch what you say."