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Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social

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Re: Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social

#41

Post by lapcat »

rvz wrote: post #7

Ok? They are a private company and they can block links that they don't like. Facebook has done the exact same thing and nothing happened. You are free to complain, criticise them, scream at these companies or protest, but like I have said many times before they will not change and it is futile to believe that they ever will as long as they 'moderate' or do whatever they want to do on their own platforms. So unsurpri…

> They are a private company

Not yet. Twitter is still a publicly owned company.

Re: Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social

#42

Post by jchw »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #13
bombcar wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the kind of thing that's interesting to document for a potential anti-trust case. Blocking the entire domain because it's "spammy" could be argued as fair - but only blocking the main links is more suspect.

antitrust? Is twitter a monopoly now?

At least traditionally, you don’t really have to clear a particularly impressive bar to be found in violation of antitrust law, mostly just behaving in an anti-competitive manor.

Re: Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social

#43

Post by roenxi »

tehlike wrote: post #31
fartcannon wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowadays, maybe let's assume malice. Maybe its a false positive and a bunch of people stop using twitter, Facebook, google, apple, or Microsoft as a result. That is less harmful (some might say it's good) than the opposite, where big corps use our collective desire to forgive as a tool to exploit us. You can apply that saying to your wife and kids. Or your neighbour. Big corps that make money off exploiting peoples n…

That must be a hard life assuming things are working against you

If you go over to the Wikipedia article for "genocides by death toll" we currently have 2 ongoing - one in Sudan, one Myanmar. And possibly Xianjing although that doesn't meet Wikipedia's standards. There are really few limits to how nasty a group of humans can get after they identify an in- and out- group.

That is genocides, in 2022. The idea that a social media company is out to crush competitors and make money is really not that far out there, and certainly not an idea that can be reasonably mocked. These companies are going the way of the more corporate news organizations - they've got influence, they want to be political actors. They are not trustworthy.

Re: Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social

#44

Post by saurik »

tehlike wrote: post #11

I bet it's likely a bug. There were times i wasnt able to post LinkedIn urls in the past. I bet it's their crawler/integrity service having hard time. Never assume malice when it can be sufficiently explained by a bug or incompetence.

Building systems that occasionally set themselves up for mistakes like this is the malice.

Re: Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social

#45

Post by mavu »

tehlike wrote: post #31
fartcannon wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowadays, maybe let's assume malice. Maybe its a false positive and a bunch of people stop using twitter, Facebook, google, apple, or Microsoft as a result. That is less harmful (some might say it's good) than the opposite, where big corps use our collective desire to forgive as a tool to exploit us. You can apply that saying to your wife and kids. Or your neighbour. Big corps that make money off exploiting peoples n…

That must be a hard life assuming things are working against you

Not if they actually are. Then it helps to make informed decisions.

Re: Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social

#46

Post by lapcat »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #4

Not surprising. Social networks have been known to block smaller competitors. After all, it’s their right to as a private company. Isn’t that how that works? Everyone always says that, and this is a case of that.

> After all, it’s their right to as a private company.

Why do people always use the term "private company"? Twitter is a publicly owned corporation. If the Musk deal goes through, it'll be private. But I'm not sure what work the word "private" is supposed to be doing.

Re: Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social

#47

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #36
nkozyra wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After all, it’s their right to as a private company. Isn’t that how that works? Everyone always says that, and this is a case of that. Unless I missed it, until you wrote this nobody had argued it wasn't their right to do this.

It's their right but it's still crummy. I want Section 230 to be repealed.

I don’t know what section 230 repeal has to do with it. Companies would still be able to block random links like this if section 230 is repealed; they’d probably do it more often.

Re: Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social

#48

Post by tehlike »

roenxi wrote: post #43
tehlike wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That must be a hard life assuming things are working against you

If you go over to the Wikipedia article for "genocides by death toll" we currently have 2 ongoing - one in Sudan, one Myanmar. And possibly Xianjing although that doesn't meet Wikipedia's standards. There are really few limits to how nasty a group of humans can get after they identify an in- and out- group. That is genocides, in 2022. The idea that a social media company is out to crush competitors and make money is…

You are mixing a bunch of things. I do think twitter has too much moderation problem, i don't think this particular issue is.

Re: Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social

#49

Post by jaywalk »

tehlike wrote: post #26
sequoia wrote: post #22

A lot of people here are jumping to conclusions based on what could simply be a bug. Why not wait 24hrs and see if this is actually some policy or just a mistake.

It's a bug but HN crowds like to talk about the evil corps all the time.

Twitter has done nothing to earn the benefit of the doubt in situations like this. Quite the opposite, in fact.
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