https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/11/twitter-blocks-links-to-rival-threads-while-ceo-downplays-reports-of-traffic-decline/

Recently hired Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino is pushing back at reports that Twitter traffic is tanking as a result of the July 5th launch of a new competitor, Instagram Threads. But the company does seem to be concerned about the potential threat posed by Meta’s rival, now topping 100 million users. On Monday, users reported that Twitter seems to be selectively blocking links to Threads.net’s website in Twitter searches, making it more difficult for anyone to surface conversations on Threads or locate users’ profiles.

Technologist Andy Baio was among those who noticed the change on Twitter after performing a search using the operator “url:threads.net,” which returned no results. Typically, this search operator would pull in any tweets with links to the website specified — and there are plenty of tweets that have threads.net links now included.