The new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, said "Twitter Files" author Matt Taibbi's claims about the social media company blocking his posts to Substack were "false."
Responding to a tweet from biologist Bret Weinstein quoting Taibbi, Musk tweeted, "Substack links were never blocked. Matt's statement is false."
But according to Taibbi, "Of all things: I learned earlier [on Friday] that Substack links were being blocked on this platform. When I asked why, I was told it's a dispute over the new Substack Notes platform…"
The dispute erupted after Substack on Wednesday announced it would be unveiling its "Notes" feature, which in the online publishing medium's own words, "may look like familiar social media feeds." The social media feed in question bears a resemblance to Twitter's feed.
In light of speculation that Twitter's blocking of Subtack over Notes was retaliatory, Musk tweeted on Saturday, "Substack was trying to download a massive portion of the Twitter database to bootstrap their Twitter clone, so their IP address is obviously untrusted."
Taibbi later added in his comment that he would be leaving Twitter for Substack Notes.
"Since sharing links to my articles," Taibbi writes, "is a primary reason I come to [Twitter], I was alarmed and asked what was going on. I was given the option of posting articles on Twitter instead. I'm obviously staying at Substack, and will be moving to Substack Notes next week."
When Newsmax contacted Substack, we were told, by a spokeswoman, that CEO Chris Best's response was the following:
"None of this is true.
1. Substack links have been obviously severely throttled on Twitter. Anyone using the product can see this.
2. We have used the Twitter API, for years, to help writers. We believe we're in compliance with the terms, but if they have any specific concerns we would love to know about them. We'd be happy to address any issues.
3. @Matt Taibbi is not and has never been an employee of Substack. He writes a Substack, and gets paid directly by his readers. That writers making money seems to be such a strange concept is telling.
This is very frustrating. It's one thing to mess with Substack, but quite another to treat writers this way."