What remained locked was the Post's account, with Twitter holding to a stated practice of not retroactively overturning prior enforcement — meaning the paper would have had to delete old tweets to regain posting rights. Stratechery's intervening critique that the block undermined Twitter's role as a facilitator for information sharing kept the pressure on, and this decision abandons the no-retroactivity rule entirely.
First-order effects
The NY Post regains full posting access immediately and without deleting any prior tweets — the concrete condition Twitter had been demanding is dropped.
Second-order effects
Every publisher or user currently under enforcement now has a demonstrated path: sustained public attention can get a platform to reverse even 'final' decisions, weakening the deterrent value of enforcement actions.
Third-order effects
If reversals under pressure become routine, moderation shifts from predictable rule-following to case-by-case adjudication by publicity — the Stratechery contrast with Facebook's softer spread-slowing approach suggests platforms face a structural choice between visible takedowns and quieter friction.
The trend: Platform moderation is becoming contingent on backlash rather than fixed policy, as Twitter's successive walk-backs of the NY Post block show enforcement rules bending once a decision becomes the story.
Our policies are living documents. We're willing to update and adjust them when we encounter new scenarios or receive important feedback from the public. One such example is the recent change to our Hacked Materials Policy and its impact on accounts like the New York Post.
This means that because a specific @nypost enforcement led us to update the Hacked Materials Policy, we will no longer restrict their account under the terms of the previous policy and they can now Tweet again.
In response, we're updating our practice of not retroactively overturning prior enforcement. Decisions made under policies that are subsequently changed & published can now be appealed if the account at issue is a driver of that change. We believe this is fair and appropriate.
Thread. Twitter backs down, which is the right thing to do. (wonder if I can get @Twitter to stop slapping “sensitive content” warnings on my posts, including one that was a golf tip.) https://twitter.com/...
Bravo to the New York Post, founded by Alexander Hamilton and in continuous circulation in the U.S. since 1801, for refusing to bend the knee to the corrupt technocracy that is Big Tech. Never bow before totalitarians. https://twitter.com/...
To recap: 1. We never posted hacked material. 2. If reporting has to be approved by subject of the story, all journalism becomes p.r. 3. @jack and Zuck testified under oath that neither has ANY evidence this was hacked material. 4. DNI, FBI and State say no disinformation.
Yet another reason why transparency around content moderation is overrated. Twitter has actually done a good job explaining its policies, and how and why they've changed. And every single response is angry people mocking them and claiming they're lying or assuming ulterior motive…