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Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

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Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#121

Post by rkeene2 »

Spivak wrote: post #95
_dujt wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, in order to help out the unfortunate website operators, people should willingly give up pii that the same companies have shown they don’t give a damn about protecting. /s

I mean what do you want them to actually do instead? Like seriously I’ve implemented at a company I worked for and it’s the least invasive thing to actually rate limit people. Alternatives included: - pay a small fee but that requires a credit card - send us government documents which is worse - mine crypto for a while but it doesn’t stop people who are actually motivated - send a selfie and then do some face matchin…

One option might be to allow people to view tweets if they have accounts from reputable federated identity providers, then you have an identity of an individual person without having to do the validation yourself. You can then rate-limit based on that individual ID.

Another option might be to rate-limit by things which don't require accounts, which won't strictly rate-limit individuals, but it's unlikely that's the terminal goal here. It's not actually clear what they are trying to accomplish. Reducing the amount of resources wasted on scraping bots ?

Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#122

Post by BTCOG »

Spivak wrote: post #95
_dujt wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, in order to help out the unfortunate website operators, people should willingly give up pii that the same companies have shown they don’t give a damn about protecting. /s

I mean what do you want them to actually do instead? Like seriously I’ve implemented at a company I worked for and it’s the least invasive thing to actually rate limit people. Alternatives included: - pay a small fee but that requires a credit card - send us government documents which is worse - mine crypto for a while but it doesn’t stop people who are actually motivated - send a selfie and then do some face matchin…

I just want to be able to occasionally read a few tweets with no required login or account. Just the same with Instagram and similar, I just won't use it and I'll forget about it. I guess Twitter is next. No, I've never had a Twitter account. I don't have a Facebook account.

Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#123

Post by donio »

system2 wrote: post #20
Theizestooke wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using old.reddit.com, and it's ok. Shame if they would turn that off though.

The day they turn off old.reddit.com reddit is dead to me. I've been on reddit 10 years and it was hard to understand why they chose this new disastrous design.

I think Reddit knows it too, that's why old is still around. The Digg fiasco was a long time ago but must be still in their corporate subconscious.

Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#124

Post by macksd »

Svetlitski wrote: post #104
macksd wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It bothered from the other angle when POTUS started pushing Twitter as an important channel to keep up on what was going on because it's hardly ideal for that. My local government has similarly been making Nextdoor a de facto requirement if you want to know what's happening or want to give feedback (especially in an era of frequent town office closures). I tend to favor minimal government but I think the USPS was an…

For what it’s worth, you can sign-up through DMAChoice to stop receiving junk mail [1]. It takes a few months after you sign up to really take effect, but it has easily eliminated 90% of the mail I used to receive. Well worth it IMO for the $2 fee every 10 years . https://www.dmachoice.org/register.php

I'll take your word for it that it works, but I would have been skeptical. Am I correct in understanding that they essentially function is a communication medium with the companies maintaining these unsolicited mailing lists, and those companies voluntarily remove people that pay DMAchoice?

Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#126

Post by city41 »

NowhereMan wrote: post #38

Do they whitelist accounts of public officials? For instance, having the POTUS account behind an auth wall seems like a horrible practice.

The POTUS relying on a commercial entity to communicate with the public seems like a more fundamental horrible practice.

Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#127

Post by mortenjorck »

Theizestooke wrote: post #11
AlwaysRock wrote: post #4

When Reddit started doing this it effectively broke my redditing habit. I know these things are annoying but for anyone who is trying to use social media less... Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram are almost unusable without their apps. They are basically useless if you dont sign in on the browser on your phone. It's great if you want to get off them.

I'm using old.reddit.com, and it's ok. Shame if they would turn that off though.

I exclusively use new Reddit. The increased friction around every single interaction is great for limiting the amount of time I spend there: it raises the bar for deciding to actually view a discussion, and the incomprehensible nesting-collapse algorithm keeps me from going down rabbit holes in threads unless it's something that genuinely interests me.

It's similar to my YouTube usage. All the pre-roll ads ensure I only start videos I'm reasonably sure I'll want to watch, and mid-rolls are a perfect reminder to bail if I'm not fully invested in what I'm watching.

Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#130

Post by echelon »

Kye wrote: post #116
wildpeaks wrote: post #64

On top of it, it's not just a matter of creating an account because they get blocked within two minutes until you also give them your phone number, despite the registration pretends it's not required (because once you signed up, it's easier to trick people into giving up yet more information than asking for it upfront).

You can remove the number after you've used the account for a while and not get locked, but they shouldn't require it in the first place.

It's probably permanently held in their databases. Some services use immutable data models that "append deletes". (GDPR made those types of systems fun to deal with.)

Might be bad for activists, whistleblowers, et al.

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