Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social

#181

Post by tehlike » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

eberkund wrote: post #155

clumpthump wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hanlon's Razor is, I believe, a good rule of thumb, but people keep using it in situations such as this one where it's not just potentially malice (wanting to harm someone for little other reason than wanting to see them hurt or wanting to hurt) but also greed/self-interest. Hanlon's Razor as stated makes sense to me. I see a lot more stupidity in the world than I see people wanting to hurt for no other reason. But g…

Why do you think a bug is a "simpler" explanation for this behaviour? Maybe if all links were broken then sure, but if only specific sites that operate against the interests of Twitter stop working doesn't that point to something else going on?

An algorithm may have incorrectly marked a site as malicious, or crawling might be failing because of an malformed http header etc. Who knows...

When there is feedback loops involved (in the context of an integrity system, for example), it doesn't outright block everything. In the past work i had our systems blocked some publishers traffic wrongfully, while not blocking others when it should(i was in display ads).

Re: Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social

#182

Post by tehlike » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

colpabar wrote: post #157

abnry wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would qualify this by saying the priors matter. Twitter has torched their credibility in a flaming dumpster fire. That changes how one might make assumptions.

It also just looks suspect. Mastadon is a competitor to twitter, right? It's obviously good for twitter that no one can post links to the mastadon sign up page, right? Do I still have to assume it's just a bug? I sure wish the bugs in my code ended up benefiting my company :)

Mastodon is a very very small surface for twitter...

Re: Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social

#183

Post by tehlike » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 3:58 PM UTC

fartcannon wrote: post #40

tehlike wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Nah, its good. Lots of dopamine from being right all the time.

Sounds good. You must also not be learning anything new. Let this be first.

Re: Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social

#184

Post by s1artibartfast » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 3:58 PM UTC

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

There are a lot of people that have no interest in cultivating an objective and accurate world view.

"sounds plausible" goes in the "objective evidence" pile and nobody follows up to see if they were correct.

What is a hypothesis here? That twitter thought they could block Mastodon and no one in the world would notice? That no one would care?

Re: Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social

#185

Post by tehlike » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 3:59 PM UTC

throw_m239339 wrote: post #81

tehlike wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> That must be a hard life assuming things are working against you Yes, better be gullible all the time instead and trust all these corporations...

Or do the correct thing and be somewhat skeptical but also logical, and think of things in context, weight potential causes for an issue and pick the likely one.

Speaking from experience: 1. size of mastodon is such a small thing that i doubt twitter even worries about it, among other things they have to worry about - like monetization. 2. My guess is integrity system incorrectly marked a url or link crawler/preview/whatever service is failing to crawl the page, or something along those lines. It can be something else, but my overarching claim is that it was not someone going into admin UI and typing mastodon to block them explicitly to cut the competition out. It may still be a lowly paid employee incorrectly doing something, but it's not for cutting the competition out and very very likely an honest mistake.

Re: Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social

#186

Post by tehlike » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 4:03 PM UTC

ufo wrote: post #126

pid-1 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Never assume malice when it can be sufficiently explained by a bug or incompetence. My 100% baseless opinion is that most evil in big orgs comes from emergent behavior. Ant colonies are capable of really complex stuff, even though individual ants are somewhat simple beings. Likewise, a corp can do evil stuff even though all individuals who are part of it aren't actively seeking to do harm. Since we can't ask a corp…

One story that often comes up: automated ML systems will have false positives every once in a while. But when the false positive affects a big customer it is fixed more promptly than when it affects a competitor...

You should talk to your congressperson to voice your opinion. I agree there should be ways to get things fixed in a timely manner. I got locked out of my old Google account once as a Google employee and i got 0 help and it was frustrating, so i understand.

Re: Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social

#187

Post by dokem » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 4:03 PM UTC

lapcat wrote: post #172

dokem wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government controls some things. Companies control some other things. Gov things are 'public', company things are 'private'. I don't know what you are trying to argue. This is how the west works 101 stuff.

> The government controls some things. Companies control some other things. The government actually controls companies. In fact they wouldn't exist as legal entities without the government. I feel there is a common misconception that "private companies can do whatever they want", belied by the existence of government regulation, but nonetheless a misconception regularly employed to dismiss antitrust concerns, for exa…

I don't think anyone is unaware of the concept of law. There are significant 'firewalls' between the public and private sectors, otherwise we would just have facism/communism or anarcho-capitalism.

Re: Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social

#188

Post by somenameforme » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 4:03 PM UTC

tehlike wrote: post #182

colpabar wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also just looks suspect. Mastadon is a competitor to twitter, right? It's obviously good for twitter that no one can post links to the mastadon sign up page, right? Do I still have to assume it's just a bug? I sure wish the bugs in my code ended up benefiting my company :)

Mastodon is a very very small surface for twitter...

And not long ago Facebook was a very small surface for MySpace. And Reddit was a very small surface for Digg, and so on. Network effects can cause competition to rapidly snowball.

Re: Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social

#189

Post by tehlike » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 4:03 PM UTC

bogwog wrote: post #136

ufo wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One story that often comes up: automated ML systems will have false positives every once in a while. But when the false positive affects a big customer it is fixed more promptly than when it affects a competitor...

One of many examples of why we shouldn’t hold corporations to the low standards we hold individuals. I.e. never give a corporation the benefit of the doubt. They’re the most important producers of our economy, and doing so allows them to be lazy (aka the complete opposite of “productive”)

See my comment above.

Re: Twitter Blocks Linking to Mastodon.social

#190

Post by krallja » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 4:04 PM UTC

lapcat wrote: post #41

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.

Yes. The SEC defines a public company:

“There are two commonly understood ways in which a company is considered public: first, the company’s securities trade on public markets; and second, the company discloses certain business and financial information regularly to the public.

In general, we use the term to refer to a company that has public reporting obligations.”

https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-ba...