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Twitter's API is down?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Twitter's API is down?

#341

Post by ViViDboarder »

Nextgrid wrote: post #197
mrtksn wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anything stops devs from using the Web interface instead of the API? Sure it makes it a bit more challenging because parsing is involved but AFAIK it is completely legal to parse and display HTML output however you want. It's essentially like a browser add-on. I wonder if Twitter can be killed by the "embrace, extend, extinguish" strategy? So: 1. Make a client that combines Mastadon/Others and Twitter feeds, mak…

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…

Regarding point 1, recent judicial decisions on scraping seemed to have entrenched it as legal.

On two, it seems like they are concerned with trademark to me. A workaround could be making a website that parses and displays Twitter content and call it something else. Then, in an app, make no mention of Twitter and only the website.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#342

Post by counttheforks »

nhtsamera wrote: post #291
counttheforks wrote: post #227

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…

Yes, you're 100% right, of course. This just goes to show how much we've lost.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#343

Post by highwaylights »

flerchin wrote: post #301
highwaylights wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fair comment, I'll clarify why I mentioned that. Bringing up Tesla and SpaceX was only to point out that he doesn't really have any way to bail out bad Twitter decisions despite it being a (relatively) smaller company. There's nowhere to pull extra finances from to bail this out, and it's known he already went into debt to make the purchase. I really don't want him to lose anything . I'd like him to go back…

Maybe spray him with a water bottle to really discourage the behavior.

All the money in the world and what he really needed was a close family member to wave a rolled up newspaper at him disapprovingly.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#344

Post by wpietri »

Nextgrid wrote: post #211
wpietri wrote: post #170

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…

> By that measure, every other company is grossly overstaffed. Recent layoffs across a big chunk of the tech industry suggest this argument may have at least some truth in it. > that company you say is more appropriately staffed contributed to a genocide that left tens of thousands dead Contributing to a genocide has nothing to do with staffing levels and all to do with unhealthy incentives - the company makes its mo…

This is incorrect:

> Contributing to a genocide has nothing to do with staffing levels

Unless we just want to outlaw online forums, any provider is going to need to track and moderate harmful content. Note that even something as small as HN has a full-time moderator. That's just part of the business model these days.

You're correct that moderation can run counter to short-term revenue gains. But it's much less clear that's true in the long term; as Facebook's reputation has worsened, its growth has slowed and its revenue has declined. Or on the other end of the scale, look at how the less restricted sites are doing. E.g., the 'chans are never going to move beyond a very small niche, and despite Twitter's troubles, nobody's expecting Gab to take the lead.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#345

Post by fsflover »

nhtsamera wrote: post #291
counttheforks wrote: post #227

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…

This is exactly why I bought Librem 5 smartphone, which can do all these things and can even serve as a laptop, if you connect a keyboard and a screen.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#346

Post by PoignardAzur »

supermatt wrote: post #324
EdiX wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 serv…

> (turnover and market cap is too low)

How do you know that, by the way? I've been trying to find this kind of info about Twitter, but I haven't really found anything.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#347

Post by tumult »

kmeisthax wrote: post #282
counttheforks wrote: post #227

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.

Apple's goal was to kill malware, not general-purpose computing[0] as a whole. Unfortunately it turns out that killing general-purpose computing is an instrumental goal[1] to killing malware: if you want a phone that cannot get a virus then you need someone pre-approving every line of code that hits the processor. Once you have any entity having control over your device, even if it is for your own benefit and you com…

The time of CFAA being wielded to suppress interoperability is over. The Supreme Court's 2021 ruling of Van Buren vs United States put an end to it.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#348

Post by counttheforks »

danaris wrote: post #321
LinAGKar wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's fine, a third party will ingest both and publish normalized feeds.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#349

Post by riffic »

tr3ntg wrote: post #304
wildpeaks wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's even what caused the creation of App.net (as a social network): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App.net At the time I backed it at the developer tier as soon as the crowdfunding campaign was available and keep fond memories of it.

I really enjoyed using App.net for the brief time it flourished.

there have been a handful of App.nets created in the last couple of months (Post, Spoutible, Hive, T2, et cetera). they'll all probably suffer the same fate too.

This wikipedia list will be there for them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_social_network...

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#350

Post by tomhallett »

marban wrote: post #253
rsynnott wrote: post #240

It's worth noting that we've been here before; back in 2012 Twitter attempted to curtail third party clients (albeit in a far more organised, less haphazard way): https://thenextweb.com/news/twitter-4 Eventually, they stepped back from the brink, presumably after realising that it was a phenomenally stupid idea (while the fraction of Twitter users using third party clients is likely small, anyone who's anyone uses a…

I was the creator of Twidroyd (First and biggest Android Twitter app w/ ~70% marketshare) and there was a larger story behind the first big anti-3rd party move. Basically we had some plans to bring users over to a new network after we got acquired by Idealab — and Twitter got wind of it. Think Mastodon 2010 style.

Has there been any interest in telling this story in any rich medium (podcast, long form article, 30 minute youtube video, documentary, netflix series). Not only does that sound super interesting, but now that most/all of Twitter Execs have moved on - I wonder if you'd be able to get Twitter's side of the story as well.
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