Twitter has now begun locking visitors out of the platform unless they’re logged into their account. Visiting any Twitter page other than the homepage without being signed in will automatically forward users to a page where they can login or set up an account on the platform. Visitors cannot view any user content without logging in.
The unexpected move from Twitter started rolling out on Friday. There has yet to be any official announcement from the company.
So, no more using it as your blog for the broader public to return via the link to read your posts (like I always used it for my 31,700+ tweets). It will also break links from search engines that have long referenced important news events or announcements.
That said, I’ve my engagement on Twitter drop through the floor over the last year. It is basically irrelevant for me today. I post the same content across about 17 networks and by far my highest engagement (every day) is on Mastodon and Friendica (bot of which almost daily have new followers).
But Twitter, Reddit, etc can do what they want to (they are privately owned) and I suppose whatever happens will just play out in its natural course. It’s going to be very interesting to see how the news media reacts to this limiting of their posts…
See https://mashable.com/article/twitter-force-visitors-login-view-tweets-profiles