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Twitter now requires an account to view tweets

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Re: Twitter now requires an account to view tweets

#911

Post by naasking »

smcl wrote: post #788
kakakiki wrote: post #599

From Elon's twitter ( https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1674942336583757825?s=20 ) "This will be unlocked shortly. Per my earlier post, drastic & immediate action was necessary due to EXTREME levels of data scraping. Almost every company doing AI, from startups to some of the biggest corporations on Earth, was scraping vast amounts of data. It is rather galling to have to bring large numbers of servers online on an…

Sorry I don’t buy it. Hundreds of millions of people use Twitter, and we are to understand that there are an enough people scraping to the extent that they had to suddenly take drastic action by shuttering unauthenticated access? Any dev would have told him that those supposedly scraping could simply setup Selenium or some other headless browser to login before scraping. This smells of another failed Musk experiment…

> Hundreds of millions of people use Twitter, and we are to understand that there are an enough people scraping to the extent that they had to suddenly take drastic action by shuttering unauthenticated access

Suppose 1 million people are accessing Twitter at any given time. An actual person might only be making 1 request / second. That's 1 million requests / second.

Suppose there are 100 AI companies scraping Twitter. A bot like this can make thousands to tens of thousands of requests per second. That's an additional million requests / second.

There are probably more than 100 "AI" companies now, trying to train their own bespoke LLMs. They're popping up like weeds so I can totally see Twitter's load doubling or tripling recently. So sorry, I just don't get the skepticism. Sure it could be a cover for something else, but his actual stated reason seems totally possible.

Re: Twitter now requires an account to view tweets

#912

Post by thissitesucks__ »

versteegen wrote: post #884
danShumway wrote: post #861

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a bridge to sell anyone who believes this is true. AI companies have been a boon to businesses that want to lock down user data and now have an excuse. It may be true to the extent that Musk is legitimately angry that Twitter isn't getting a piece of that AI VC money (I'm sure he is). But: A) Twitter would probably move in this direction even if AI companies didn't exist, this is an excuse. Nothing about Musk'…

> Nothing about Musk's Twitter has indicated that he cares about Open data access or anonymous access to the site Not so, he tasked George Hotz with getting rid of that horrible popup which prevented you from scrolling down much if you weren't logged in, which was added soon before he bought Twitter. When that was removed I rejoiced. But now Twitter's gone 100x in the opposite direction.

[flagged]

Re: Twitter now requires an account to view tweets

#913

Post by postalrat »

thissitesucks__ wrote: post #912
versteegen wrote: post #884

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing about Musk's Twitter has indicated that he cares about Open data access or anonymous access to the site Not so, he tasked George Hotz with getting rid of that horrible popup which prevented you from scrolling down much if you weren't logged in, which was added soon before he bought Twitter. When that was removed I rejoiced. But now Twitter's gone 100x in the opposite direction.

[flagged]

Let me guess. He got bored and moved on before making any breakthrough.

Re: Twitter now requires an account to view tweets

#914

Post by nashashmi »

mcbutterbunz wrote: post #314
lopkeny12ko wrote: post #301

[flagged]

I got banned from Twitter for putting Elons image as my profile pic and tweeting a friend asking if he wanted a job. It was a dumb joke but I got banned In the email, they said “Note that if you attempt to evade a permanent suspension by creating new accounts, we will suspend your new accounts.” So now I’m 100% banned from twitter if I follow the rules.

> that if you attempt to evade a permanent suspension by creating new accounts, we will suspend your new accounts.”

They do this at eBay too.

Re: Twitter now requires an account to view tweets

#915

Post by AzzieElbab »

kakakiki wrote: post #599

From Elon's twitter ( https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1674942336583757825?s=20 ) "This will be unlocked shortly. Per my earlier post, drastic & immediate action was necessary due to EXTREME levels of data scraping. Almost every company doing AI, from startups to some of the biggest corporations on Earth, was scraping vast amounts of data. It is rather galling to have to bring large numbers of servers online on an…

The whole thing is down now, returning “rate limit exceeded” in the UI. A very hamfisted affair imho

Re: Twitter now requires an account to view tweets

#916

Post by m3kw9 »

blurrybird wrote: post #263
m3kw9 wrote: post #135

I’m using twitter as much as ever, the live content is just too good to pass up, I set up Lists and use it to read only the category I want and you don’t need to follow them. You don’t have to like Elon but the stuff people write(given the right profiles), the concentration of it, isn’t really offered anywhere else.

Do you have some examples of these lists? I’ve wanted to do something similar to Mastodon where you can follow hashtags. Sounds like you might have solved that?

Hash tag following isnt supported. but list like crypto for example, you create a list called Crypto and add user profiles to it.

Re: Twitter now requires an account to view tweets

#917

Post by harshreality »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #683
kakakiki wrote: post #599

From Elon's twitter ( https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1674942336583757825?s=20 ) "This will be unlocked shortly. Per my earlier post, drastic & immediate action was necessary due to EXTREME levels of data scraping. Almost every company doing AI, from startups to some of the biggest corporations on Earth, was scraping vast amounts of data. It is rather galling to have to bring large numbers of servers online on an…

Elon has a good point there. Much of the current AI hotness is predicated on stealing peoples content and exploiting the infrastructure that other people have built. I don’t think it’s acceptable. The licenses, compensation models, law, technical solutions, attribution, security and privacy all need time to catch up. Regulation has a role to play as its a bit of a free for all right now. The irony of Elon mentioning…

Please don't throw around the word "stealing" so loosely.

Scraping data from a public website is not "stealing". It might be a violation of the terms of service, but then you have the whole issue of click-through (formerly shrink-wrap) licenses and contracts of adhesion.

If someone isn't vetting you and potentially signing you to a more meaningful contract before giving you access, for free, to data, then using that data for any purpose whatsoever (except republishing it or derived works, which might, depending on the nature of the data or the derived works, be a violation of someone's copyright) is so far from "stealing" that using that word is wrong, and I suspect intentionally inflammatory.

That's why Elon limited access, rather than going to the police to file charges for theft, or suing over copyright violation or breach of contract. Not to say he absolutely couldn't do the latter, but it's hardly a clear win.

Re: Twitter now requires an account to view tweets

#919

Post by ProllyInfamous »

tourmalinetaco wrote: post #304
cmckn wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not assume that, no. Following accounts is fundamental to using Twitter; I absolutely think the majority of people using Twitter are logged-in.

Maybe to using Twitter on a sustained basis, sure. However I imagine there’s a decent-if-not-majority chunk that accesses tweets via Google/friends/news articles/etc

I ha[d] a bookmark folder with about a dozen twitstreams — no login/acct. I'm not signing up. Too bad nitter is broken, as well.

With all the public officials on Twitter (and FaceBook) publishing "public-facing" information, I'm surprised both are allowed to be/remain walled gardens.

To do my business taxes this year I had to DEMAND paper form acceptance, which was begrudgingly accepted once I went, in person, to the tax authorities [they want you to provide all sorts of tracking JUST TO FILE STATE TAXES, under the auspices of "two factor authentication"].

As a technosophisticate that intentionally avoids email and doesn't carry a cellphone... I weep for what my public-interfacing world will yet become.

Re: Twitter now requires an account to view tweets

#920

Post by ProllyInfamous »

user764743 wrote: post #513
cmckn wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not assume that, no. Following accounts is fundamental to using Twitter; I absolutely think the majority of people using Twitter are logged-in.

Tons of people I share news with don't have Twitter - now I just wont bother, and I'm assuming it's the same for many others who used Twitter as some sort of middle man for that.

e.g. I now [MUST] ignore all HN posts linking to Twitter (as I do not have an account, and nitter is broken by recept API changes).
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