cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/513993

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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    1 year ago

    And nothing of value was lost.

    That’s why the only social I used was reddit and now moved to lemmy. Because I would rather ideas rise and fall on their own merits than by the name recognition of who said them. I value ideas, not personas or brands.

    Some idiot celebrity/politician/Capitalist Sociopath says something and it gets seen by millions, not because it was worth seeing, but because a famous person said it.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      1 year ago

      Plenty of value was lost, a lot of news on my singularity sub were posted on twitter because for some reason people thought it’s a great decision to hold on to dying platform.

    • kokoapadoa
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      71 year ago

      i enjoy art and because a lot of art is hosted on twitter a lot was lost to me. i never wanted an account.

    • @[email protected]
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      51 year ago

      In the fire country of California it was a quick way to get updates on any wild fires that pop up or evacuations… it has its use cases, maybe not as a social media platform, but surely as a public service/news platform it has some merit.

      • KairuByte
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        31 year ago

        And now everyone would need to create an account and log in to see those updates. Kinda defeats the purpose.

        Maybe move to some sort of RSS feed? I’m sure such a resource exists.

      • nintendiator
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        21 year ago

        undefined> , maybe not as a social media platform, but surely as a public service/news platform it has some merit.

        If the distribution of some emergency news and public service news is so important that you have to have it during emergencies, then it’s Too Big To Fail and must not be held by a corporation, but implemented by the government. Every service such as police, firefighters, etc, should have a public RSS or Atom service announcement.

  • @[email protected]OP
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    1 year ago

    Well, there go all my links to tweets on my singularity sub. Hopefully this finally pushes posters to switch to another platform to share news about stuff.

    Edit: Same as paywalled articles, I won’t be allowing links to tweets as their main focus from now on. It’s time for this platform to die.

    • @[email protected]
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      431 year ago

      This is turning into a pretty decisive time in social media where we have the opportunity and momentum to move back to open systems. 🤞

      • @[email protected]OP
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        381 year ago

        Youtube also is starting to experiment with locking people from watching videos if they have adblock turned on. We live in a truly great times where those behemoths are deciding to kill off themselves at the same time and it makes me truly happy. Open source FTW.

        • Briongloid
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          181 year ago

          It’s honestly a crazy time this year alone, everything that has existed for basically 15 years is self-destructing, it may be something that is referenced in the future like the Dot/Com bubble.

          It won’t be the end of social media, but it will be a significant period of change and perhaps we will see the landscape change with new platforms etc. Obviously ActivityPub has a high liklihood of growing exponentially.

          • @[email protected]OP
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            161 year ago

            Also advancements in ai have been crazy too. This year is kinda insane with what’s happening.

        • @MsPenguinette
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          01 year ago

          I gladly and happily pay for YouTube Premium and have had it since the days of just paying for Play Music Unlimited.

          Hopefully they can figure a way to make more premium subscribers rather than trying to squeeze the people who can’t pay cause youtube dying would be absolutely catestrophic

        • ATGM 🚀
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          01 year ago

          Loosing YT would be painful for me, but there’s no way I’d start sitting through ads. I’d end up buying a nebula subscription or something at that point.

      • @nitefox
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        31 year ago

        or platform like Facebook et similia will make their own federation, actually centralising the user even more to a point of no return

    • @[email protected]
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      31 year ago

      Facebook and Instagram have been doing this for years. It was only a matter of time before Twitter started it.

  • @[email protected]
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    311 year ago

    Elon posted this on Twitter (quoted from an private blog since I currently have no way to access twitter):

    Temporary emergency measure. We were getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users! Several hundred organizations (maybe more) were scraping Twitter data extremely aggressively, to the point where it was affecting the real user experience.

    Lets hope that they lift this ban soon.

      • @[email protected]
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        291 year ago

        I’m definitely not using this platform anymore, but Twitter being private also locks away a lot of valuable content (including government announcements, as someone mentioned).

          • @[email protected]
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            221 year ago

            If the reason for the ban is massive server load due to content scraping for AI models, that could become an issue for the fediverse as well. Our infrastructure is funded by donations and has much less performance and resiliency than big tech companies.

            We might reach a point where the negative impacts on the environment caused by AI outweigh the benefits, just like it already happened with blockchains.

            • @[email protected]
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              51 year ago

              If the reason for the ban is massive server load due to content scraping for AI models

              He’s not genuine whatsoever. I’ll believe this was the reason to lock Twitter when I see evidence of it. Remember how he wasn’t going to [layoff 75% staff; block payments for utilities / rent; cancel bonuses; etc]? Troll troll troll.

            • @[email protected]
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              1 year ago

              Might get to the point where anti-DDOS measures have to be used against AI scrapers.

        • mochi
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          31 year ago

          Governments should just set up a single user ActivityPub instance to broadcast their updates.

    • @[email protected]
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      221 year ago

      Reality: Musk has degraded Twitter’s performance to the point they can’t handle unauthorized access.

    • onepinksheep
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      181 year ago

      And that, Musky, is why sites generally provide an API and don’t lock it behind prohibitive pricing. Because the alternative is to scrape your site, and that’s more resource intensive for the site in question.

      • lucidwielder
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        11 year ago

        Obviously they don’t mind imo because it also slows them down to some degree and since normal users and uses for it will go down I imagine things will either be wash or still be cheaper for them. Also Elon clearly has ambitions to best others in the AI game - it is just the experts in the field already parted ways w/ his arrogant self.

    • @[email protected]
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      151 year ago

      OT but it amazes me at what point musk sounds like trump when posting lol, he really just is technotrump

    • Nougat
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      121 year ago

      … data pillaged …

      Meaning … people were using your publicly available website?

    • soundasleep
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      1 year ago

      If only there was some sort of reasonably-priced computer-readable service or platform that organisations could use to collect data without degrading the service of users…

      • lowdownfool
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        71 year ago

        Exactly. API users migrated to using scrapers instead of paying what NuTwitter wants for shitty service. Who could have foreseen that?

    • @MsPenguinette
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      41 year ago

      I’d bet $20 that it was actually just their platform just struggling to do normal traffic and elon wants to make it some sort of rallying cry for his sicophants

    • Haan
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      11 year ago

      Both Reddit and Twitter making sure their data won’t be used for training chat bots without a hefty price tag

  • @[email protected]
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    301 year ago

    What’s up with all the social media platforms recently? Really trying their hardest to alienate every user they can…

    • 🐱TheCat
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      31 year ago

      I think they all fear the AI corporations drinking their milkshake … but the current social media giants and the ai tools are both squatters who create no value on their own, they both need humans to create real content

    • @MsPenguinette
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      11 year ago

      Doing everything to get as much money as fast as possible will always lead to this. It’s why the economy goes belly up every so often.

      I wonder if we can describe the current going-on’s as an “internet recession” or maybe even the “digital depression”

    • @[email protected]
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      11 year ago

      interest rates going through the roof, all these companies have to squeeze every penny they can outta people all of a sudden

  • Paige (she/her)
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    231 year ago
    • Click on a link to Twitter on an app that isn’t twitter
    • Link opens in an anonymous browsing window
    • Twitter redirects me to the login page
    • I click open in app
    • It opens the login page in the app

    Great design everybody.

    • @[email protected]
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      21 year ago

      Reddit does this too except if you are in anonymous browsing mode the link to open in app takes you to the download page in the App Store, even if you have it installed already. Literally no way to open that page in the app.

  • @[email protected]
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    141 year ago

    I’m still convinced musk was a psyop to make people stop using twitter and ultimately give back mental sanity to americans

  • @mrginger
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    141 year ago

    I will never understand these platforms doing this. The whole reason they became popular was because you could see what everyone was saying on them. It drove traffic to them and in turn ad revenue and more users. Reddit closing their api is basically the same. Only Facebook gets away with that kind of crap because of the nature of what it is and how it’s used.

    Not that I’m complaining.

  • ColonelSanders
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    101 year ago

    While corporate greed has been a problem since the Reagan administration, we’re seeing an unprecedented jump in greed these past couple of years by companies all suddenly trying to squeeze out every last drop from people. Netflix with it’s disabling of user password sharing, Twitter and all it’s checkmark BS (with this login wall being the latest example), Reddit and it’s API changes, and YouTube experimenting with blocking people who use adblockers. All to name a few. It really is spiraling out of control and unchecked, but sadly we lack a proper government (at least in the US, though there may still be some hope in the EU) to stand up to them.

    • reverendz
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      81 year ago

      @ColonelSanders

      @Martineski

      The era of easy VC money is over. All these companies that exploded with growth on low-interest-rate-investor-cash are having to show profitability to shareholders.

      I’ve seen this before. Been involved in tech since the mid 90’s. During the Dot Com boom of the late 90s it was NUTS what some of the companies would provide for employees. I worked for a place that basically provided free food for employees. I literally didn’t shop for groceries for a few months, I’d just bring some of it home with me.

      When the “Dot Bomb” exploded in the early 00’s it was an abrupt shift and it happened so quickly I remember everyone being shocked and upset.

      I remember feeling real lucky to have a job in '08 and '09 when the recession got bad. However, things got better and you began to see more perks from tech companies.

      Now it’s cycling back again. It’s only a matter of time before someone from the government says “recession”. In the meanwhile, a lot of these tech companies are acting like any other big business and they’re squeezing what they can out of users to be more profitable in the short term.

      While I definitely think there are issues with federation, it couldn’t have become popular at a better time. IMO while most users will put up with what these companies are doing, you’re going to see more tech orientated people migrating to federation in some flavor or another. Eventually, it or something akin to it will get more polished and the mainstream will follow. And the cycle repeats.

      • mochi
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        21 year ago

        I have a feeling that Meta getting involved in Federation is going to be the doorway for a lot more people to figuring this out.

    • rho
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      41 year ago

      This is sort of the final stage of endless growth capitalism. Once you have reached the max saturation of your potential user base with an attractive product, you sell that product for a huge payout and the next CEO comes in with a mandate to squeeze the orange for all its juice.

      Inevitably this leaves the market ripe for the next disruptor to come in with a more enticing offer and the cycle repeats. With market consolidation however this is becoming harder and harder to do with every second comapny owned by Disney or Microsoft or Haliburton etc.

      • ColonelSanders
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        71 year ago

        Which begs the questions: What comes next? How does late stage capitalism “end”? Will it collapse in on itself? What will replace it? I don’t know the answers to these, but it certainly feels like we’re entering (or about to enter) the “find out” phase.

        • dedale
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          41 year ago

          how does it end
          Seeing the environmental disruptions of the last decade, I’d say extinction of human life.

  • KairuByte
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    61 year ago

    Yeah, I haven’t opened a twitter post in a few weeks anyway, but this just cements the fact that I’ll never go to twitter again. I legitimately don’t care enough about what people are saying on there to login.

  • @GreenCrush
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    31 year ago

    Noticed this recently when trying to open links. I have a Twitter account that I don’t use, but the links still don’t work. It’s like Twitter wants you to search for the content you want in the app itself. Which is probably the case.

  • @Nanno
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    21 year ago

    Note that they’ve indicated that this is a temporary measure related to bulk scraping that has happening