So today I clicked a twitter link because companies like to use it for official announcements, only to be greeted with a login page. Was annoyed then I remembered nitter exists. It just prompted me to install Privacy Redirect which I should have done ages ago.

Github: https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect

Chrome Web Store: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-redirect/pmcmeagblkinmogikoikkdjiligflglb/related

Firefox Browser Add-ons: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/privacy-redirect/

Looks like twitter waited for the reddit API changes to do push this change to try to do it under the radar.

  • @[email protected]
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    1041 year ago

    This is pretty terrible really. Governments, cities, states use twitter for alerts and news. Now I have to agree to be tracked and monetized to view information from my government. I think everyone needs to write to all your cities, states, schools, law enforcement etc and demand they stop using twitter for anything. Our taxes should not go to padding twitter’s wallets.

    • @zeppo
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      461 year ago

      Now that Twitter has become what it is, I’m somewhat offended that my local government makes announcements on it. Hopefully this will be an impetus for them to stop… although many agencies use Facebook too, and FB and IG have been this way for years.

      • @[email protected]
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        1 year ago

        Lemmy is exactly what government bodies need. Anyone from other instances can see, vote and comment. They can limit sign up to only employees and their users immediately have an official seal of authenticity. @obama@whitehouse.gov would be so cool.

          • @tryagain
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            11 year ago

            Either, or both. The Fediverse is the way forward for government announcements.

          • @tryagain
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            11 year ago

            Either, or both. The Fediverse is the way forward for government announcements.

          • @tryagain
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            11 year ago

            Either, or both. The Fediverse is the way forward for government announcements.

          • @tryagain
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            11 year ago

            Either, or both. The Fediverse is the way forward for government announcements.

          • @tryagain
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            11 year ago

            Either, or both. The Fediverse is the way forward for government announcements.

        • @zeppo
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          211 year ago

          They absolutely should be setting up lemmy or mastodon as official announcement sites. That would be a perfect platform.
          I think they also want to be on twitter, fb etc for the distribution potential though.

        • katy ✨
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          11 year ago

          I would prefer @[email protected] so that it makes it easier to defederate from extreme right wing presidents if, god forbid, they get in power again.

          Also for archival purposes.

    • @Godnroc
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      241 year ago

      I’ve worked in local level government communication. Most of the time your just trying to hit as many places as possible in a hopeless effort to keep an interested public informed. The price is usually low, the audience is there, and information can be duplicated to other platforms easily, so it generally makes sense to use social media.

      That said, low engagement on a platform would be a great reason to consider cutting it out. A citizen with feedback is enough to spark the flame too.

    • @paddirn
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      1 year ago

      As much as I hate the idea of Yet Another Social Media App, I kind of wish there was some sort of official government-specific platform that was only available to state/local/federal government(s) or organizations for making important announcements. No memberships required (other than posters or commenters), no likes, upvotes, or retweeting or whatever, just postings of information that people can get to from anywhere. Something completely untied from any corporate entities.

      • @zeppo
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        191 year ago

        They could easily have their own websites based on Mastodon or Lemmy, not federated with anything.

          • @zeppo
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            71 year ago

            this is true, but that would require their audience to know about and use RSS.

            • lemmyvore
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              31 year ago

              People had to learn to use Twitter too, they can learn to use a feed reader. Or they can just read a website. It used to be common practice to just go to an official website, and optionally subscribe to its feed as well. Browsers used to make it super easy by prominently displaying a button that showed you that the website has feeds to offer.

      • @bighi
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        91 year ago

        The Brazilian government send SMS to people for alerts. It’s independent of apps, and everyone with a phone can get them.

        Seems like a good solution for important warnings.

        • @NevermindNoMind
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          71 year ago

          I don’t use twitter, but I’ll check the local utilities twitter if there is a power outage so I can learn about updates, or the local transit twitter if there are delays, things like that. SMS isn’t very practical for those kinds of infrequent uses.

    • @bamboobanga
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      111 year ago

      This should be the kick in the butt that public entities need to stop using twitter, since their announcements should be made available to everyone, not just those who have twitter accounts.

    • @poison
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      71 year ago

      Our taxes should not go to padding twitter’s wallets

      Or just nationalize Twitter, make it a public utility like water, parks, roads, etc. Then it’s not subject to the whims of some clownshow billionaire dictator. It could be the people’s podium, not some damp troll cave.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 year ago

      Don’t forget Elon unironically said he wanted Twitter to be a global town square. Dudes playing 1d chess by reducing his advertisers reach even further…

  • Talos
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    791 year ago

    Omg, I went to twitter.com and it requires a login now. That’s the end of that, I guess. Most people aren’t going to sign up to see a random sentence written by some person that was linked to by some random website.

    • @[email protected]
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      181 year ago

      Same thing happened to Insta back when I used to lurk on it. They start requiring a login to view any content, so I just noped out. I don’t care enough to make an account on every social media site.

    • @tranceFusion
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      151 year ago

      Are all the news articles with embedded tweet widgets busted now?

      • @NevermindNoMind
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        171 year ago

        I just checked a random news article and embedded tweets seem to be working still. But when you click the tweet you get taken to the login page.

        • @scutiger
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          51 year ago

          I don’t know why they bother embedding tweets. They always quote the tweet anyway, so you end up reading the same bit twice.

    • @donalonzo
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      1 year ago

      The day I realized it was actively trying to make me furious by pushing notifications of incendiary tweets from people I didn’t know existed or cared about writing about stuff I didn’t find interesting but extremely toxic and offensive I stopped using it. It was before Elon took over, but when he did I deleted the account. It’s such a toxic hellscape, I wish the official outlets I followed would just publish to Mastodon instead, but I’d rather just not see anything from that page, it’s absolutely not worth it.

      It’s the sewage of the Internet, and the rats there brutally fight each other for the silliest of reasons.

    • ToastyWaffle
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      91 year ago

      Anything worthwhile from Twitter gets screenshot or there’s an article posted anyways.

    • @wtf_man
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      91 year ago

      twitter is the perfect place to have a screenshot of something you said in 2010 be put on blast so a bunch of college kids can scream about it and demand your corporation fires you

    • CaptainApathetic
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      81 year ago

      The only reason I use it is that not enough prominent people are on Mastodon and for me it’s only good for being a quick way of seeing what’s going on in media and politics.

      • @WhiskyTangoFoxtrot
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        21 year ago

        I wonder how many of those people are going to switch now that non-logged-in people can’t even see their posts.

      • ElephantInTheRoom
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        21 year ago

        That’s the only reason I’ve used it for in the past. Following news agencies and NGOs.

        Now it works the same way with mastodon.

      • @Tallero
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        21 year ago

        Downside is that it seems post elon twitter is far more far right infested, twitter algo pushes those agendas even when one constantly tries to block and press not interested on tweets and accounts.

  • Matharl
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    501 year ago

    Maybe users will stop posting link to this site now that a lot of people can’t see it.

    I see this as a plus.

    • @douglasg14b
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      111 year ago

      Walled gardens are not a plus, no matter how much you might want to watch something wilt and die, restricting access to information doesn’t help you nor I.

      • @AustralianSimon
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        121 year ago

        It’s good because open platforms will grow, this is how reddit got there. Actually this is how they all seem to start before greed takes over.

      • Matharl
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        91 year ago

        No one should use Twitter for news and information considering how poorly it fights fakenews.

        If you wanna share something, use the actual source.

    • Ghostalmedia
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      61 year ago

      This is a blessing. That stuff will no longer get upvotes in video subreddits and communities.

  • @JigglySackles
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    451 year ago

    I can’t wait for this stubborn jackass to kill off twitter to the point it becomes an unrecoverable decline.

    • @[email protected]
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      1 year ago

      I never understood the appeal. I have friends that send me random twitter links and I’m like I don’t understand wtf I’m looking at, it’s difficult to tell who is talking to whom, and whatever it was isn’t funny or interesting to begin with. I don’t care what chucklefart69 has to say about a famous person. If I want to read the news, I’ll read the news. I’m ok with not knowing about a major event breaking within the first 5 minutes of it happening.

      • @[email protected]
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        41 year ago

        Right! I thought I was the only dumbass that found tweet structure extremely unintuitive and difficult to understand who was talking to whom

    • @Matdan
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      101 year ago

      It basically is, free API was culled destroying many apps and sites that scraped data from Twitter. So many glitches and bugs mean it’s easy to get banned.

      You get temporarily blocked if you follow more than a couple accounts in a short time and basically anything. So much anti-vax rubbish and crazy people forced onto my feed. Blocking too many of those gets you temp locked out.

      Now this login screen and I’m struggling to see how anyone can find it useful. My work still insists though.

    • Cyrus Draegur
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      11 year ago

      the only way mastodon will ever get a chance, and even then, it’s gonna be an uphill battle. even with zero competition, mastodon will struggle. Because its name fucking sucks. Dear gods. Who in their right fucking mind names a social media service after an ungainly lumbering beast that is world renowned for being EXTINCT.

      Maybe if they renamed the whole thing to something like “trunky”, a bright and bouncy name like that might actually stick. Meanwhile, an elephant never forgets, etc. The unfortunate connection to the american conservative faction’s mascot might still be a stumbling block, but it’s not nearly as big a problem as it being currently called “mastodon”.

      • @JigglySackles
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        71 year ago

        Lol I think you’re way over thinking the name. But it’s definitely not my job to name things so who am I to judge.

      • rezz
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        Yes. Lemmy is also a bad name. But Mastodon guy I believe is German as well — I peg it to one of those, “concept doesn’t cross the copywriting language barrier” sort of issues.

        It’s probably the worst app name, period. It needs to be forked and rebranded.

  • @Nryanlol
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    451 year ago

    Why does the internet seem to just continue getting shittier

    • @Jackhammer_Joe
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      271 year ago

      Corporate greed and commercialisation of everything. Welcome to the dystopian hellhole we live in

      • @MercuryUprising
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        141 year ago

        Yep, every company requires quarterly growth and hitting KPIs, so a bunch of assholes with no moral qualms about it will fuck everything to get higher bonuses.

        Its also why everything is subscription based these days.

        • TwoGems
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          1 year ago

          deleted by creator

          • @lazyplayboy
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            21 year ago

            Adobe relies on piracy for it’s dominant position

      • @AlexisFR
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        1 year ago

        deleted by creator

    • @Vipsu
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      1 year ago

      Many of the services are ran by huge companies that are simply running out of ways to grow. This makes them try to gain more out of existing user base often through questionable ways.

      Same thing has been happening for the game industry as well with premium games now having season passes, battle passes, gambling, micro transactions and online only requirements.

      [edit] corrected duplicate mention of season passes, intention was to mention battle pass instead.

      • @[email protected]
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        21 year ago

        Dunno if writing “season passes” twice was intentional… But somehow it fits with reality better this way 😔

  • partial_accumen
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    431 year ago

    Is the suggestion here that Twitter now requires a login to even view a tweet?

    • Ech
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      291 year ago

      It’s not a suggestion. It’s what they’re doing right now.

      • @Willer
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        1 year ago

        can you also tell me in what universe this wouldnt be a shotgun to the knee face?

        • Ech
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          21 year ago

          Musk’s delusional one, apparently.

    • TheOneCurly
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      241 year ago

      That’s what I’m experiencing. Every tweet and even going to the main url results in a redirect to a log in splash page.

      • partial_accumen
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        411 year ago

        Well if that’s the case Twitter is as dead to me.

        Spez has talked about how he’s trying to model Reddit on Musk’s “success” with Twitter.

        It would be hilarious if Musk set up Spez to take the publicity fall to cover Musk’s plan to force Twitter for authenticated consumption only.

        • @Augustiner
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          281 year ago

          Why does there always have to be a secret play involved with musk? Can’t they just both be incompetent at leading a social media company? This is just another example of Hanlon‘s Razor…

          • @AbidanYre
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            181 year ago

            People have a hard time with the fact that the richest man in the world isn’t a genius.

          • Aviandelight
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            31 year ago

            Maybe not a secret play but definitely a dick move by Elon that surely benefits him.

        • @zeppo
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          131 year ago

          Twitter is way more prominent than reddit. I doubt that there’s a secret plan

          If anything, Splez is too dense to notice that Musk seems to be intentionally/unintentionally ruining Twitter. It’s really hard to imagine how someone could look at “ad revenue down 70%” and think wow, that’s what we need to emulate!

      • @Oswald
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        31 year ago

        To second this, it seems to be happening to me today too, as of this morning.

    • @cerevant
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      141 year ago

      Yep. I wonder what this is going to do to their traffic. I know I’m not signing up.

      I bet Reddit will follow suit.

  • @danhasnolife
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    391 year ago

    The enshittification continues. Cannot believe they are taking a page out of Pinterest, of all places.

    • @Willer
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      61 year ago

      Is there a way to control the image size?

      • @melonpunk
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        41 year ago

        Good question, I have no idea. I wasn’t even sure this was going to post. I just pasted the images in from the clipboard.

          • @banksymimosa
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            71 year ago

            Can I make this image bigger?

            Bigger than you’re thinking right now.

            • @Willer
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              21 year ago

              dew it.

              fr tho i chose this because it is about perfect size imo

    • @axtualdave
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      171 year ago

      I think we’re reaching that point in the technology cycle where the money people have finally realized that running a social media platform is essentially unprofitable. People absolutely loathe ads and go to extremes to block them, and legislative and regulatory controls are starting to squeeze the manipulative aspects of social media such that what few ads the platforms can serve aren’t as relevant anymore, and the data they collect from their users is protected in more and more jurisdictions.

      So they’re bailing on the open platform idea. They’re slapping paywalls up, putting things behind required-accounts, and trying to build a walled garden they can control.

      I wish them the best. I remember what happened to Prodigy, CompuServer, and AOL.

  • @cerevant
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    261 year ago

    The fediverse really needs to work on usability, but this is yet another example of why monolithic services can never be the long term solution.

    • @Willer
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      11 year ago

      beeing monolithic is not bad, its just an issue when its not FOSS.

        • @hark
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          11 year ago

          Wouldn’t hiding source code disqualify the OS portion of FOSS?

          • @Contravariant
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            You’d think, but apparently they hadn’t taken into account that someone would sell GPL licensed software and then simply instruct their customers that they had the right to publish the source code while simultaneously reminding them that red hat had the right to reject their custom should they choose to exercise this right.

  • @kozel
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    251 year ago

    Also nitter works no longer.

    • @sotolf
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      61 year ago

      Wow, that’s kind of sad to see since it’s the only interaction I’ve had with twitter for years has been through nitter.

  • @Vipsu
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    231 year ago

    What makes this worse is that using Twitter pretty much requires one to give them your phone number. Accounts without one will often or eventually get locked for “suspicious activity” and given option to unlock the account by providing phone number.

    So anyone thinking about creating throwaway account to browse twitter, don’t bother.

    • @kozel
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      31 year ago

      I had one w/o telephone number, it got locked right the day I decided to delete it…

    • AbaixoDeCao
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      31 year ago

      Can’t believe I wasted 40 minutes on this, I shouldn’t write this, but using Tor on Brave I was able to open an account without a phone number. Now I’ll have to delete it…

    • @Delusional
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      21 year ago

      I’ve avoided that awful site since it’s creation and now that it’s getting significantly worse, there’s even less of a reason to make an account.

  • @N00dle
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    211 year ago

    This is super annoying. I was trying to read a news tweet but can’t I don’t have an account. They did this on a Friday and haven’t commented on it means it’s probably here to stay.

    • @Delusional
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      121 year ago

      Just another reason why that site is going to shit.

  • @KrapKake
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    201 year ago

    Reddit… And now Twitter can go right into the garbage. Not using the stupid official app and I am not making a Twitter account. Nope.