X, formerly known as Twitter, was throttling traffic to websites that the social network’s owner Elon Musk publicly dislikes. The platform slowed down the speed it takes when accessing links to a handful of websites, including The New York Times, Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, Threads, Reuters and Substack. The platform appears to be reversing the slow access to news sites on Tuesday afternoon.
I see it’s time to dust off these old Net Neutrality bumper stickers.
Neutrality is about ISPs being content-neutral. Xfinity won’t block or slow down access to Netflix, for example.
One website doing shitty things is just shitty. Twitter is not a ISP. If you don’t want to sit through their
setTimeout()
, go to the destination directly.Net neutrality has never been about forcing content platforms to accommodate their competitors.