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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

#131

Post by ragazzina »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #2

There’s a strange irony in Redditors complaining about this when Reddit has been rolling out the same sporadic login requirements (on mobile web) to view certain Reddit content. I suppose these angry Reddit commenters bashing Twitter aren’t seeing it because they’re logged in to Reddit. Just as with Reddit, there are workarounds to bypass this login requirement if you really want to. The users in that thread have som…

But signing up for Reddit is much easier than signing up for Twitter. You just need to specify a username and a password. You don't need an email or a phone number.

Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#132

Post by dhosek »

rkeene2 wrote: post #121
Spivak wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

One option would be to just allow people to view public tweets without requiring sign in.

Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#134

Post by [deleted] »

elliekelly wrote: post #74
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 don’t have Chrome installed on any of my devices but I’ve noticed when I’m on reddit.com on my iPhone it prompts me to either use the Reddit app or “continue browsing” using the Chrome app. Does Google pay for this as some sort of an advertisement? Or is Reddit incentivized in some way to plug Chrome over Safari or DDG “browser”? When I click “continue” it lets me just keep using my current browser but I always won…

[deleted]

Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#135

Post by mschuster91 »

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).

I'm not sure I'll blame Twitter for (effectively) requiring phone numbers - they are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

On one side, people rightfully complain about trolls, harassers, spam, CSAM, misinformation campaigns and propaganda on online services. And on the other side, people will also rightfully complain about data harvesting, and an ever growing lack of anonymity on the Internet.

At the moment, phone numbers are the closest thing we have to at least have some cost associated with spamming and a legal pointer to get hold of criminal-level abusers. Using government IDs such as the German Personalausweis (which can communicate with a website using NFC and a special app) would outright kill anonymity, using middle men to do the same (or video/postal identification) like for banks, porn and gambling sites costs money and is not much better in terms of anonymity.

Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#136

Post by maram »

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).

>> it's easier to trick people into giving up yet more information than asking for it upfront

What I found interesting is that “translate tweet” button doesn’t appear unless you are signed in. Why cannot I read news from all over the world unless I’m signed in? Why do users have to sign in to read translated tweets in real time?

Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#137

Post by Kye »

elliekelly wrote: post #74
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 don’t have Chrome installed on any of my devices but I’ve noticed when I’m on reddit.com on my iPhone it prompts me to either use the Reddit app or “continue browsing” using the Chrome app. Does Google pay for this as some sort of an advertisement? Or is Reddit incentivized in some way to plug Chrome over Safari or DDG “browser”? When I click “continue” it lets me just keep using my current browser but I always won…

I get a button for Safari on my iPhone and iPad.

Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#138

Post by thebooktocome »

finiteseries wrote: post #102
jchw wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get away with that on a residential IP sometimes, but don’t count on it. Log in from the wrong location or a VPN or do certain patterns of behavior and it drops you.

I exclusively use it via VPN, with a ProtonMail address from the web (so many login notifications) while like, commenting, and subscribing on politically controversial content and soccer. Three, almost four months in and zilch. It’ll be a good test case anyways.

They flagged my phone number-less account after four months, probably because I replied to a high traffic thread.

Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#139

Post by saltminer »

JohnWhigham wrote: post #87
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the design, it's the fact that it's buggy and frequently unresponsive. If it was well done I might be able to forgive them, but my phone tells me I have messages I can't see on the desktop even after I refresh the page.

Reddit has had 5 second page loads for over a decade. Extremely embarrassing of them to be honest. I can understand them not fixing their search because that increases engagement, but you always want your site to be fast. I guess they don't because they know they have no competitors.

>I guess they don't because they know they have no competitors

There are lots of clones, but they typically become havens for the ones who get the boot from reddit (remember the chimpire?), who proceed to drive away the users who don't agree, or they are either trying to lure reddit's current demographic (i.e. not very technical) or are super niche and could easily be served by a traditional forum.

The worst part of reddit killing so many forums is that there used to be plenty of places to go to discuss fairly niche interests. Now that they're gone, many communities have no fallback if their userbase is mostly old reddit users aside from trying to migrate, and that will inevitably result in many just leaving the community entirely.

Re: Twitter starts to require login to view tweets

#140

Post by SynasterBeiter »

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.

If you click the button to get rid of the cookie prompt on the bottom of the site while on old.reddit.com, it redirects you to new.reddit.com. Amazing.
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