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Twitter's API is down?

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321–330 of 431 posts

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#321

Unsurprisingly, the outage hasn't affected twitters own client. Roll on May 2023. Unless twitter want to block the EU, they will have to provide the same level of access to 3rd party clients as they do their own. If the API is down for 3rd parties, but not for twitters own client, that will be considered a breach.

Speaking of which, I wonder if the DMA would finally let us get decent RSS bridges for Instagram and Facebook. At least we already have that for Twitter.

Sadly, I suspect (while not having read the DMA myself) that what it would require is some kind of published format for interoperability...meaning that Facebook would publish the FacebookStream API and Instagram would publish the InstaStream API, neither of which would actually look like any existing formats (or each other).

Would this work to get the EU to say they've fulfilled the DMA's terms? No idea. But Facebook has yachtloads of cash to throw at legal battles, especially where it sees a potential existential threat.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will have 2 problems with this: 1) the law, at least in the US. Laws such as copyright and maybe even the CFAA have been abused to outlaw adversarial interoperability. You'd need to either practice good opsec and operate anonymously or be based out of reach of US-allied law enforcement. 2) Apple (and maybe Google too?) - they will remove any client for a third-party service unless said client has explicit approva…

Another point to show what Apple's true goal is: To kill general computing. If you buy an iPhone you should be able to run whatever app you want on it. But no, Apple knows best and will not permit you to do anything it doesn't approve of. As for the APIs being copyrightable see Google vs Oracle.

[deleted]

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#323
post #296

Unsurprisingly, the outage hasn't affected twitters own client. Roll on May 2023. Unless twitter want to block the EU, they will have to provide the same level of access to 3rd party clients as they do their own. If the API is down for 3rd parties, but not for twitters own client, that will be considered a breach.

Is Twitter actually considered a gatekeeper by the DMA?

Not automatically, as they dont meet the turnover/market cap requirement - but the EC can still label them as one following market investigation.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#324
post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU's Digital Markets Act.

Does it even apply to something like Twitter? If it applies to Twitter then surely that means it also applies to Youtube? Does that mean youtube-dl must be officially supported? I thought it only applied to digital markets (stuff like amazon, google's advertising platform, etc)

Actually, no, it doesnt apply to twitter right now (turnover and market cap is too low). But EC can assign status anyway following market investigation.

It absolutely does apply to Youtube (finally some way to challenge youtube!), but im not sure how that affects the use of youtube-dl.

The DMA covers ten core platform services:

  - online intermediation services;
  - online search engines;
  - online social networking services;
  - video-sharing platform services;
  - number-independent interpersonal communication services;
  - operating systems;
  - cloud computing services;
  - advertising services;
  - web browsers;
  - virtual assistants.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another point to show what Apple's true goal is: To kill general computing. If you buy an iPhone you should be able to run whatever app you want on it. But no, Apple knows best and will not permit you to do anything it doesn't approve of. As for the APIs being copyrightable see Google vs Oracle.

You shouldn't even need to run an "app". A phone is no different from a laptop, except that it is smaller and the mouse/keyboard are part of the screen. On my phone, I should be able to: * Open an IDE and write some code. * Compile my code (depending on the language). * Run my code. The whole concept of "app stores" is absurd. In 10 years, will we be denied sudo rights on our laptops? Will we need to pay a 30% cut to…

> In 10 years, will we be denied sudo rights on our laptops?

More and more likely. In 10 years' time I'd love to be off the Intel/Apple Mx train and using devices that can run desktop Linux with with RISC-V and Raspberry PI-like SoCs.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter allowing ban evasion and discussions about it had been a real clever move IMO. Users make a lot of noises and calls for exodus, none working, because it always happens inside the very platform.

Indeed, never discount network effects. The amount of people that moved to Mastodon (and crucially, have actually continued posting there and haven't moved back) is miniscule compared to Twitter's overall userbase.

[deleted]

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#327
post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU's Digital Markets Act.

Does it even apply to something like Twitter? If it applies to Twitter then surely that means it also applies to Youtube? Does that mean youtube-dl must be officially supported? I thought it only applied to digital markets (stuff like amazon, google's advertising platform, etc)

The word 'market' here is being used in the same sense it's used in 'common market' or 'free market', not as in literally a place that directly sells things to consumers.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The official client is not designed to make Twitter reasonable to use, it is designed to show you ads.

Yeah. I could stand an ad or two maybe, but I really really don't want any recommended tweets or anything non-chronological. Any ideas?

No, sorry, I closed my account a month or two ago. Prior to that I used Tweetbot on iOS, which it sounds like they have also nuked. I've since moved to Cohost and Discord, and I continue to post on the Something Awful forums. None of those are Twitter replacements, but I don't miss Twitter at all.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another point to show what Apple's true goal is: To kill general computing. If you buy an iPhone you should be able to run whatever app you want on it. But no, Apple knows best and will not permit you to do anything it doesn't approve of. As for the APIs being copyrightable see Google vs Oracle.

> If you buy an iPhone you should be able to run whatever app you want on it. I hear this sentiment quite often on HN. Maybe I’m missing something but was this tacked onto the end of those stone tablets that Moses brought down from the mountain? If not, then it seems like people want this to be a statement of fact when the reality is much closer to: > If I buy an iPhone I wish I could run whatever app I want on it.

Don't know about Moses, but here's what iJesus had to say:

> The full Safari engine is inside of iPhone. And so, you can write amazing Web 2.0 and Ajax apps that look exactly and behave exactly like apps on the iPhone. And these apps can integrate perfectly with iPhone services. And guess what? There’s no SDK that you need! You’ve got everything you need if you know how to write apps using the most modern web standards to write amazing apps for the iPhone today..

https://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-...

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? WhatsApp had 35 developers and 350 million users. By that measure, every other company is grossly overstaffed. Personally, I could argue that every social network is grossly understaffed by the measure of how lax they are about what they are supporting. E.g., in 2017, that company you say is more appropriately staffed contributed to a genocide that left tens of thousands dead: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/ne…

WhatsApp wasn’t a social network with public posts of rich media. It’s trivial from an architectural perspective because there isn’t anything that needs to be sent to millions of users.

Oh? So you're saying a company with a similar, but not identical, product might have completely different infrastructure and staffing needs?

So we might not, in fact, be able to meaningfully compare Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc by headcount alone?

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