Reports Show X Continues to Restrict Links to Rival Apps and News Publishers
Yeah, this is not exactly surprising news.
A new investigation has found that X is restricting links to what it considers rival platforms, with users of Patreon, WhatsApp, and Messenger seeing significant load-time delays when linking through from the app.
As reported by The Markup:
“Twitter is now slowing down traffic on links to the crowdfunding site Patreon, WhatsApp, and at times, Meta’s Messenger app, a Markup analysis confirms. Using a tool launched by The Markup last month, readers discovered that links to these sites were delayed by an average of 2.5 seconds – findings we confirmed.”
That may not seem like a massive delay, but in practical application, it is, for most users, significant. It seems that X is looking to stop users from switching to these other platforms, as it offers its own variations of the same, or it may have rival features incoming, that it believes will negate the need to use these apps.