Live data from Hacker News

Tell HN: X is opening any tweet link in a webview whether you press it or not

news.ycombinator.com

241–250 of 577 posts

Re: Tell HN: X is opening any tweet link in a webview whether you press it or not

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a real attempt earlier this year to move to BlueSky, but it's become even worse than Twitter for different reasons. BlueSky's definitely gotten a lot of the technical side of things right (as compared to the fediverse, the complexity of which blocks mainstream adoption). Unfortunately, it's also now an incredibly unpleasant place to be unless you want to swim in constant political ragebait. Twitter also has…

I would try again, but not use discover, and aggressively mute/block.

I think what's disappointing is that so many people that I've followed for years now routinely engage in daily political slapfights, or at least retweet ragebait. In the blogging era, it would have been really weird for a software engineer to sit down and write several paragraphs about their political views, but the friction of hitting "repost" is so comparatively low that everyone does it. Myself included, honestly, although I've been trying not to.

I don't have any problem with people having and voicing thoughts on politics. Everyone should strive to be well-informed and be capable of having reasonable conversations about politics, especially with people with whom they disagree. (Obviously, that's a charitable description of what's happening on social media, but that's a different topic.)

I guess ultimately the problem is that I want to follow topics, not people, and there isn't a great way to do that. Reddit provides an alternative but is comparatively low-volume, and voting represents a fundamental design problem because it by definition creates an echo chamber. And that's not even taking into account how over-moderated the site is at this point.

Re: Tell HN: X is opening any tweet link in a webview whether you press it or not

#242
post #170
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there are platforms that did figure it out, but it's quite fractured. For US, you have Bluesky and Fediverse (Flipboard, Mastodon). In Ukraine, you can use Threads. Germany seems to love Bluesky and Mastodon, given the amount of independent Personal Data Servers and Mastodon instances located there.

Who is using Bluesky in the US? Whenever something big happens I keep getting x.com links from friends. Is it just my friends?

> Who is using Bluesky in the US?

Everyone I know. I routinely see only bluesky links. Yes, if X/Grok is promoting Nazi content, then yeah, I'll hear about it. But beyond that, nothing important that happens isn't showing up on Bluesky.

> Whenever something big happens I keep getting x.com links from friends. Is it just my friends?

I think it's safe to say that if people are sending links to a certain site, they are using that site. But assuming that everyone is using that same site is silly. It doesn't take any amount of effort to realize that other people are using other sites.

Re: Tell HN: X is opening any tweet link in a webview whether you press it or not

#243
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: Why doesn't Google de-rank content that requires a login? I remember they used to claim they did but they clearly do not anymore.

That would be equivalent to demonetizing the entire web. Free content would win out over paid content regardless of quality. As the old adage goes, "when you're getting something for free, you're the product being sold." Only sites making money by, shall we say, "indirect" means would be able to survive. A search engine which prioritizes free content over paid would become nothing but a propaganda engine.

“Free content would win out over paid content regardless of quality” this doesn’t follow unless we assume the most extreme implementation, the openness of the content is just one factor of many that should count in the contents favor. Further it assumes the only non-shady way to monetize content is put it behind a login which is not true.

Re: Tell HN: X is opening any tweet link in a webview whether you press it or not

#244
post #68

What about links to malware or other illegal content that will be downloaded without me clicking on it...? Is it only in the app, or also with the browser? Crazy.

You don't get it. It's worth it for the sake of UX.

/s

Re: Tell HN: X is opening any tweet link in a webview whether you press it or not

#245
post #223

Nobody wants a damn web view. If I'm clicking off to a link, I may want to click to another app and back in and still be where it was... If it's in a webview that's gone as soon as I click out. Yes, you can open in Chrome or whatever, open in a browser, but that's a pain in the ass to do an the time. I hate web views, in all forms.

Similarly... I _really_ dislike clicking a link in Safari on iOS and it opening an App instead of going to the web page. I have the YouTube app installed and use it on occasion, but its really jarring when I click an organic search result in Duck and get launched into an app that may not have the same privacy settings my browser is setup with.

Ironically, I have the opposite complaint with YouTube, particularly with these new Twitter web views. It takes 3 “navigations” now to get to the iOS YouTube app: one to open the Twitter web view, one to open that URL in Safari, then one to open at YouTube video in the native app.

Re: Tell HN: X is opening any tweet link in a webview whether you press it or not

#247
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who is using Bluesky in the US? A lot of writers and creatives who could not stomach X.com anymore (and were then likely burned by Mastodon's geekiness). > Is it just my friends? If your friends are in the right-wing sphere (e.g. Joe Rogan listeners, etc), then yeah, likely.

I tried out Bluesky during the great migration about a year ago. It was incredibly toxic, but of course the "left-wing sphere" thinks they are the purveyors of universal "good", thus their toxicity is fine.

I suspect our politics are just too different for my attempts to defend the culture itself to be relevant, but it is super easy to cultivate what you see on Bluesky.

You can detach your posts if you get quote-reposted, you can limit who can reply to posts (to followers, people who follow you, people you've mentioned, or only to yourself), blocking someone also means that 3rd parties can't even view the threads (and so can't jump into drama that one side has attempted to disengage from), you can hide replies to your posts, blocklists let you immediately prevent large lists of users from seeing or interacting with you, and there's a culture among many users to immediately block people who are thought to be potential agitators (a very proactive culture of "don't feed the trolls").

If your experience was toxic, you probably just didn't use the tools available to you to avoid that toxicity.

Re: Tell HN: X is opening any tweet link in a webview whether you press it or not

#248
post #170
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there are platforms that did figure it out, but it's quite fractured. For US, you have Bluesky and Fediverse (Flipboard, Mastodon). In Ukraine, you can use Threads. Germany seems to love Bluesky and Mastodon, given the amount of independent Personal Data Servers and Mastodon instances located there.

Who is using Bluesky in the US? Whenever something big happens I keep getting x.com links from friends. Is it just my friends?

I consider myself left-wing, but bluesky is pretty casually toxic in a way that turns me off.

Re: Tell HN: X is opening any tweet link in a webview whether you press it or not

#249
post #231
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The discussion over X is always the same: "It's gone to hell" "No, it just reflects your tastes" "That's objectively false: create a new account and see what happens." "..."

The same can be said of bluesky. In fact I think that you've said it yourself and recommended that people stick to manually curated follows!

uh, where...?

Re: Tell HN: X is opening any tweet link in a webview whether you press it or not

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried out Bluesky during the great migration about a year ago. It was incredibly toxic, but of course the "left-wing sphere" thinks they are the purveyors of universal "good", thus their toxicity is fine.

I suspect our politics are just too different for my attempts to defend the culture itself to be relevant, but it is super easy to cultivate what you see on Bluesky. You can detach your posts if you get quote-reposted, you can limit who can reply to posts (to followers, people who follow you, people you've mentioned, or only to yourself), blocking someone also means that 3rd parties can't even view the threads (and s…

i consider myself left-wing and found it very toxic. the ubiquitous blocking features are also a pretty big negative as i found myself blocked by a considerable portion of the site simply for following people in AI

site features can only go so far when there is a broader cultural ethos

Post reply on HN