With Elon Musk now part of the US Government, any changes made to X are more important than they would have been previously. And the latest change affects anyone who uses Signal.
You Can No Longer Tweet Out Links to Signal
Since at least Sunday (February 16), Signal.me links have been blocked on Elon Musk’s X (formerly known as Twitter). Signal.me links are used to contact people on Signal directly, so blocking them lessens the chances that people will reach out.
The issue was first discovered by security researchers at Mysk, and then covered by Disruptionist. The blocks affect public posts, direct messages, and even profile pages.
Different X users appear to be having different experiences when trying to post Signal links. Most are reporting various “message failed” prompts, including “spam and malicious activity,” and “identified by X as being potentially harmful”.
When testing it for myself, I didn’t even receive a prompt informing me that the tweet with the Signal link hadn’t gone live. Instead, it just kept bouncing back to drafts regardless of how many times I clicked “Post”.
For the uninitiated, Signal is a private messaging app that puts privacy at the heart of its mission. It’s open-source, and boasts strong end-to-end encryption designed to ensure your communications with others are completely private.
Related
What Is Signal and How Does It Work?
Here’s a quick guide on how to get started with Signal, the privacy-focused messaging app.
Signal Is Used Extensively by Whistleblowers
This has made it especially popular among journalists, who can receive tips from sources without prying eyes knowing what’s being said, by whom, and about what. And those sources often include whistleblowers revealing information they wouldn’t be comfortable sharing in a more public forum. And this makes the timing of X blocking Signal links more troubling.
Elon Musk is now part of the US Government and the Trump administration. He’s the head of DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency), currently gutting various federal agencies. And some of the thousands of federal workers who have already been fired have turned to Signal to blow the whistle or share their story with interested parties documenting what’s happening.
Is this connected? Or sheer coincidence? We cannot claim to know, but the timing is a little suspect to say the least.
Thankfully, there is still a workaround of sorts, with Signal users currently (at the time of writing) still able to post their Signal handle on X. So, anyone interested in contacting them can copy and paste the handle into the Signal app.
