Substack was hamstrung by Twitter proper after it introduced a rival service

Substack introduced Notes on Wednesday, explaining that customers “will have the ability to publish short-form content material” on “nearly something—together with posts, quotes, feedback, pictures, and hyperlinks.”

Shortly after, Twitter started hamstringing Substack. Now, Twitter blocks likes, retweets, and feedback on tweets which have a hyperlink to a Substack e-newsletter. And Substack writers can now not embed tweets when making a publish on Substack. The difficulty appears to be solely affecting Substack and no different platforms.

Substack CEO and cofounder Chris Greatest tweeted Friday, “We hope this motion was made in error and is just short-term, as a result of writers deserve the liberty to share no matter hyperlinks they need. However that is larger than Twitter. It exhibits why it’s so vital for writers to personal their relationship with their viewers.” 

Twitter didn’t reply to Fortune’s request for remark. Though it didn’t give a motive for its strikes in opposition to Substack, a number of on-line critics remarked on the timing.

Theo Priestley, creator of the 2021 e-book The Future Begins Now, tweeted that Twitter was “most certainly” suppressing Substack due to the Notes announcement. “Twitter doesn’t need you to make use of it,” he wrote.

“A day after [Substack] introduced its personal Twitter-like service referred to as Notes, Twitter appears to now be blocking the flexibility to embed tweets inside Substack posts,” wrote conservative pundit Parker Molloy. “Fairly actually the worst factor about Twitter nowadays (in my view) is that issues change on a complete whim. Each day, we open the positioning to seek out one thing new that has modified for no clear motive.”

Substack differs from social media giants in that it focuses on subscriptions fairly than promoting for income. E-newsletter writers themselves resolve how a lot to cost for subscriptions, and the way extensively to make their work obtainable. 

“The final word objective on this platform is to transform informal readers into paying subscribers,” Substack wrote in its Notes announcement. “On this system, the overwhelming majority of the monetary rewards go to the creators of the content material.”

Substack issued a statement Friday by which it mentioned it was “disenchanted that Twitter has chosen to limit writers’ capacity to share their work…their livelihoods shouldn’t be tied to platforms the place they don’t personal their relationship with their viewers, and the place the foundations can change on a whim.” 

Whimsical adjustments have been commonplace on Twitter since Musk’s $44 billion takeover final 12 months. Final weekend, Twitter eliminated the blue verify mark from the New York Instances account on the platform within the begin of a purge of “legacy blue checks.” Earlier than Musk, the marks have been free and served to confirm the id of notable accounts; now the corporate needs customers to pay a month-to-month charge for them. 

In December, the corporate all of the sudden forbade customers from linking out to competing social networks, solely to shortly reverse that call. Paul Graham, a extensively revered enterprise capitalist who’s been supportive of Musk, had his account briefly suspended due to the coverage change after he talked about his account on Mastodon.

Musk tweeted in December: “Twitter must be simple to make use of, however no extra relentless free promoting of opponents. No conventional writer permits this and neither will Twitter.”

The brand new Notes service won’t doubtless pose a lot of a menace to Twitter or different established social media giants. As Substack wrote in its announcement: “The incumbents are entrenched.” 

However on Friday afternoon, Substack tweeted: “Any platform that advantages from writers’ and creators’ work however doesn’t give them management over their relationships will inevitably marvel how to answer the platforms that do.”