Paul Graham, a respected venture capitalist and supporter of Elon Musk’s Twitter efforts, had his Twitter account suspended Sunday. The suspension followed a tweet in which Graham wrote: “This is the last straw. I give up. You can find a link to my new Mastodon profile on my site.”
In his tweet, he mentioned a new Twitter policy prohibiting users from linking to other social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Nostr. This policy also prohibits using other means to circumvent the rule. For example, writing “Instagram.com/username” to not create a link.
Graham’s account appears to have been suspended. He wrote that he could find a link on my Mastodon profile site. That could be taken as an example by Twitter. We reached out to Twitter but did not receive an immediate response. However, Graham’s account was unaffected after we reached out.
Gergely Orosz, a technology author, noted that his Twitter account was suspended. He wrote, “Paul Graham – founder of Y Combinator and someone who has been supportive of Elon Musk ever since the Twitter takeover – announced that he would be taking a break from Twitter and suggested that people could find his Mastodon account via his website. He was removed from Twitter just hours later. It’s unbelievable …”
Howard Lerman, the co-founder of many tech startups, expressed his surprise by tweeting: “Paul Graham (formerly @paulg), defines literally every attribute one can hope for on social networks: Profound and civil, thoughtful, honest. Direct, polite. Active, responsive to everyone. I’m certain I didn’t see many of the things he is. He’s my hero.”
Mastodon is widely thought to be an alternative to Twitter, and Graham wrote: “I haven’t ‘left Twitter.’ I just don’t want to keep using it while it’s banning links to other sites. Plus given the way things are going, it seemed like a good time to learn more about Mastodon.”
He said, “FWIW I still hope Elon succeeds with Twitter. Why wish failure on anyone? But for me, not letting people post links to their other accounts was just too much.”
Other commentators also commented on the suspension. Alexis Ohanian (founder and general partner at VC firm 776), noted Graham’s status as Silicon Valley “royalty.” On Sunday, he tweeted: “Wild. @PaulG was suspended for *sending people to his website to view a link to his mastodon. This is going to get really, really exciting. PG is SV royalty.”
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