Twitter is rejecting posts containing JSFiddle URLs • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter is rejecting posts containing JSFiddle URLs

#131

Post by nerdponx » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 2:39 PM UTC

Kye wrote: post #95

nerdponx wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, a lot of people do. In order to obtain the critical mass you need for a functioning social network, you need content that a lot of people will want to look at. In this case, that means influencers.

I don't know what your basis is for this assertion, but it's not true in the case of Mastodon. It functions just fine. I don't need some random checkmark bearer on there to enjoy my little corner of the fediverse. The instance I'm on covers its costs with a Patreon. That's true of most I interact with. There is no need for massive scale. Only ad-supported centralized services require that to function. Not everyone ha…

That's for you.

If your goal is to have Mastodon "catch on" and have people transition away from Twitter en masse, then yes, you need William Shatner on Mastodon.

Re: Twitter is rejecting posts containing JSFiddle URLs

#132

Post by libria » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 2:54 PM UTC

59nadir wrote: post #97

MasterScrat wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how someone could be tech-savvy enough to know about ETH and actually own some, while at the same time falling for such scams.

I would wager most of the people dealing in crypto currencies are actually precisely the kind of people that would fall for pretty much anything. I don't think it's a stretch to say that the fact that they deal in crypto currencies is actually a pretty good indication that they would.

I think you're conflating categories. Here's what I think: https://i.imgur.com/d4ocNXa.png

That is to say, gullible people are found everywhere but I don't think people inclined to fall for fraud are the same as get-rich-quick tech-heads.

Re: Twitter is rejecting posts containing JSFiddle URLs

#133

Post by Kye » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 2:55 PM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #131

Kye wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what your basis is for this assertion, but it's not true in the case of Mastodon. It functions just fine. I don't need some random checkmark bearer on there to enjoy my little corner of the fediverse. The instance I'm on covers its costs with a Patreon. That's true of most I interact with. There is no need for massive scale. Only ad-supported centralized services require that to function. Not everyone ha…

That's for you . If your goal is to have Mastodon "catch on" and have people transition away from Twitter en masse , then yes, you need William Shatner on Mastodon.

Okay. That's not my goal. I don't who has that as a goal. Is it your goal? Maybe you should talk to Shatner about Mastodon. He's fairly responsive on Twitter.

Even the main Mastodon project instance is funded by a Patreon. I don't think Eugen would complain if he had a few more users, but growth doesn't seem to be the #1 goal. Only the tech press and its target audience seems to care about how fast Mastodon grows. They are free to start a growth-focused instance.

The instance I'm on has 800+ active users. The numbers on closely related instances are probably similar. That's plenty.

Re: Twitter is rejecting posts containing JSFiddle URLs

#134

Post by acdha » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 2:55 PM UTC

layoutIfNeeded wrote: post #12

vermontdevil wrote: post #4

It’s due to crypto scammers using it. From the founder’s post: At some point in the past crypto scammers used JSFiddle to host pages with a wallet code and posted links to that on Twitter. Due to the nature of JSFiddle, anyone can post anything, so wallet codes are ok – we did implemented a content filter to shadow-ban these. I asked Twitter if they they could help out and ban twitter accounts that were posting scam…

Crypto scammers can simply switch to GitHub Pages. Can Twitter ban github links?

There's a fairly big difference: JSFiddle is completely anonymous but GitHub Pages and similar services require accounts and at least in the case of GitHub they have a functional abuse team.

In contrast, JSFiddle can take something down but that's where it ends unless the scammer used a dedicated IP which is easily traced to them.

Re: Twitter is rejecting posts containing JSFiddle URLs

#135

Post by enraged_camel » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 3:12 PM UTC

banachtarski wrote: post #53

Timucin wrote: post #18

> Twitter just went the easy route and blocked all jsfiddle.net links instead of blocking spammer accounts on their platform. This is a huge problem with all the tech giants that needs to be addressed. I don't expect them to be perfect but I expect them to be open to communications on any level. I also think Twitter is the Twitter today just because of the bots and fake accounts they have since those accounts were cr…

I just don't agree with this sentiment. I don't work for twitter or any social media company, but it strikes me as their prerogative to ban content deemed unsafe if they don't have the means or wherewithal to properly police the content. From an engineering standpoint, how exactly do you propose to scan fiddles for objectionable content. With an image link, you could throw a neural net at it and at least tag it as ns…

>> From an engineering standpoint, how exactly do you propose to scan fiddles for objectionable content.

But if this was about getting people to click more ads, Twitter would be throwing enormous amounts of resources at it.

I mean, let's not pretend that this is an engineering problem.

Re: Twitter is rejecting posts containing JSFiddle URLs

#136

Post by blarg1 » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 3:16 PM UTC

holtalanm wrote: post #116

paulgb wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s mining code, I think it’s wallet addresses posted by scammers. Here’s an example of the scam I think this is intended to curb: https://s3.amazonaws.com/aws-website-staticfiles-25g9k/elon_...

holy shit Jita scammers have come out into the real world now. "send me 1,000 isk and i'll send you 2,000 isk back!"

ok sent.

Re: Twitter is rejecting posts containing JSFiddle URLs

#137

Post by dmix » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 3:37 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #125

Ensorceled wrote: post #113

How many people are actually linking to valid JSFiddle links from Twitter? This might have just been a math decision (X% malware > x% good links). I have my own problems with Twitter, but a social media site with a LOT of non-technical users blocking access to a site specifically designed to run anonymous code in their browser doesn't make me want to break out my pitchfork ...

I think the math would then lead to only big sites being "good enough" to pass the twitter test as to who gets a whole domain filtered or not, and if you're running a site that someone does a bad thing on ... so much for anyone linking to you anymore on Twitter. That seems inherently bad.

Twitter et al have already decided to become the self-anointed gatekeepers of what’s okay to post on the internet.

I missed the days when it was just Google search results we had to worry about.

Re: Twitter is rejecting posts containing JSFiddle URLs

#138

Post by dmix » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 3:43 PM UTC

stevekemp wrote: post #26

diveanon wrote: post #22

At what point is the tech community going to abandon twitter? From my perspective it is just bots, "influencers", and propaganda. I see very little social utility for using the network, especially when compared to the damage it is causing through the spread of misinformation and outright lies.

From your perspective it is just bots, "influencers", and propaganda. From my perspective it's the everyday chat of my friends, and interesting security-researchers posting their findings. It's also a randomly acquired group of people I follow to improve my ability to read the Finnish language.

> From my perspective it's the everyday chat of my friends, and interesting security-researchers posting their findings.

I wish this was true. I’ve struggled for years to keep my feed about the tech topics I’m interested in. Twitter keeps making that harder and harder.

Now twitter force feeds every viral anti-Trump or political outrage tweet, liked by some random user I followed 4yrs ago, into my main feed.

Their insistence on choosing what content I want to see for me, instead of just the feeds of the people I opted-in to follow, has made it nearly impossible to avoid the cancerous US political and other social issue outrage machine which is what 90% of Twitter’s popular content seems to be.

I had no choice but to abandon Twitter. Unfollowing people who post political stuff was hard enough, unfollowing people who use the like button on political/outrage stuff plus other viral content that surfaces the highest is near impossible.

I hope Twitter makes a ‘retro’ mode where I can just see the actual tweets of only the people I follow in semi-chronological order. With the same option to turn off retweets for certain users, with no "liked" or trending tweets forced in.

Re: Twitter is rejecting posts containing JSFiddle URLs

#139

Post by Beldin » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 3:46 PM UTC

dwild wrote: post #123

banachtarski wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't agree with this sentiment. I don't work for twitter or any social media company, but it strikes me as their prerogative to ban content deemed unsafe if they don't have the means or wherewithal to properly police the content. From an engineering standpoint, how exactly do you propose to scan fiddles for objectionable content. With an image link, you could throw a neural net at it and at least tag it as ns…

> their prerogative Thus any business decision isn't a problem? Whether it's their prerogative, it still a problem in tech. > to ban content deemed unsafe Like any links? Or even text itself? The only thing that makes JSFiddle "worst" is how easy it is, but even then almost anything else is just as easy. If there's money to be made too, unless you block everything that cost less than the money to be made, what you do…

> their prerogative

Thus any business decision isn't a problem?

Depends on your definition of "problem"... and thus your definition of who should care:

- legally (government): any business devising that comply with law are not a problem

- financially (investors): any decisions that increase profits are not a problem

- morally/ethically (users): any business decisions that you personally are okay with are not a problem.

Each of these has its own correction mechanism: persecution, lack of funding, customer outcry & abandonment.

In other words: there are ways to reverse bad decisions.

The only thing that makes JSFiddle "worst" is how easy it is

As pointed out in other comments, the problem is that anyone can anonymously create a malicious JSFiddle that runs undesired code. You could make a car that any website that similarly allows anonymous code execution should have that warning or be blocked. Most links, however, are better attributable. (Eg, require account creation).

Re: Twitter is rejecting posts containing JSFiddle URLs

#140

Post by kbenson » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 3:53 PM UTC

vermontdevil wrote: post #4

It’s due to crypto scammers using it. From the founder’s post: At some point in the past crypto scammers used JSFiddle to host pages with a wallet code and posted links to that on Twitter. Due to the nature of JSFiddle, anyone can post anything, so wallet codes are ok – we did implemented a content filter to shadow-ban these. I asked Twitter if they they could help out and ban twitter accounts that were posting scam…

On a complete tangent, I think "rogue" might be the most misspelled word for those that otherwise have good spelling. It's still jarring every time I see it, decade after decade.

And "loose" instead of "lose", but that one is just confusing.