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Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

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Re: Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

#752

Why have we let X (et al) have total control over the content posted by the users ? Why do the users agree to the limits imposed by them and let the platform decide who gets to see the content they posted ? Because they're offering the infrastructure. The tech for such a network is now within reach of many, but these apps are heavily dominated by network effects and that makes it impossible for competing apps to take…

Whatever happened to "Twitter can do what it wants, it's a private platform"?

I believe that sentiment started to die out around the time people realized a Nazi gained control over the world's centralized communication hub. Whether that says more about the communication, the nazi, or the people is a question for the ages.

Re: Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

#753

Once upon a time I used Twitter's API to scan for tweets that were talking about a particular Wikipedia page. Doing semantic analysis, I did insert the tweets in the right place of the page. I did it as a student, using the free API. Twitter was the open, technically respected network with a great engineering blog. Now it's a political project to elect the extreme-right in Europe.

"The world's town square", where everyone could gather and see what was going on. And, for more than a decade, it appeared to work pretty well. Governments, media outlets, public-facing services of all kinds came to rely on it as their main way to talk to the public. But now it's impossible to use without a login, most of that value has been lost. The best thing to do is to learn from what happened, and not allow a p…

Never had an X account, never will.

Now I'm completely locked out of police reports & municipal updates in my area because it's the only platform they post on.

Re: Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

#754

Why have we let X (et al) have total control over the content posted by the users ? Why do the users agree to the limits imposed by them and let the platform decide who gets to see the content they posted ? Because they're offering the infrastructure. The tech for such a network is now within reach of many, but these apps are heavily dominated by network effects and that makes it impossible for competing apps to take…

> Why have we let X (et al) have total control over the content posted by the users ?

Because that's not what happened.

Why have users given control over their content to X?

Re: Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

#755

Why have we let X (et al) have total control over the content posted by the users ? Why do the users agree to the limits imposed by them and let the platform decide who gets to see the content they posted ? Because they're offering the infrastructure. The tech for such a network is now within reach of many, but these apps are heavily dominated by network effects and that makes it impossible for competing apps to take…

>Why have we let X (et al) have total control over the content posted by the users ? Because it is a private enterprise that you signed up for. You don't have a right to Twitter. You don't have a right to Facebook. If you don't like it, leave. The entitlement is massive here. These sites are poison in so many ways. Stop feeding the beast.

>You don't have a right to Twitter.

Regulation over communication channels is not only common through the ages, but expected and needed. There may not be literal landlines to worry about in the modern age, but the general idea of communication being an important medium that shouldn't be squandered by competition remains.

I prefer everyone to simply leave Twitter and to let it crash and burn, but I see the arguments to have stronger regulations on channels central enough for governmental entities to be using it as a communication hub.

Re: Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

#756

Once upon a time I used Twitter's API to scan for tweets that were talking about a particular Wikipedia page. Doing semantic analysis, I did insert the tweets in the right place of the page. I did it as a student, using the free API. Twitter was the open, technically respected network with a great engineering blog. Now it's a political project to elect the extreme-right in Europe.

Just Europe?

Already succeeded in the US. Now it’s a project of whether it can be used to maintain power. Right wing populist movements ebb and flow quite readily:

  - ebb: people realize that promises of change are empty and only enrich the few elite
  - flow: people have forgotten that the promises were empty last time
Hopefully I’m correctly sensing the shifting of the winds.

Meta platforms are more responsible for atrocities in other parts of the world, e.g. Myanmar.

Re: Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

#757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are all posting their updates on X - because, like the users, they have no choice, because no alternative exists. The fediverse is a viable alternative. But most non-tech people don't know about it.

Did websites and RSS stop working and I missed it? With more people doing AI searches a website is even more viable now, it's better for AI scraping than x.com.

RSS still works. But it doesn't offer writing comments like twitter/mastodon. Depending on the use-case this might be desired though.

Re: Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

#758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are all posting their updates on X - because, like the users, they have no choice, because no alternative exists. The fediverse is a viable alternative. But most non-tech people don't know about it.

Did websites and RSS stop working and I missed it? With more people doing AI searches a website is even more viable now, it's better for AI scraping than x.com.

> a website is even more viable now, it's better for AI scraping

That's not necessarily the endorsement you think it is.

Re: Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

#759

Once upon a time I used Twitter's API to scan for tweets that were talking about a particular Wikipedia page. Doing semantic analysis, I did insert the tweets in the right place of the page. I did it as a student, using the free API. Twitter was the open, technically respected network with a great engineering blog. Now it's a political project to elect the extreme-right in Europe.

> Now it's a political project to elect the extreme-right in Europe.

Certainly the policy of the opposition has nothing to do with the backlash. No definitely not. It's certainly just dumb people being tricked by the bad guys.

If these people could just get properly educated and shielded from the bad ideas surely they'd see the light.

Re: Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

#760

Why have we let X (et al) have total control over the content posted by the users ? Why do the users agree to the limits imposed by them and let the platform decide who gets to see the content they posted ? Because they're offering the infrastructure. The tech for such a network is now within reach of many, but these apps are heavily dominated by network effects and that makes it impossible for competing apps to take…

>Firefighters who deal with forest fires, police, governments, rescue services (here in Spain) are all posting their updates on X - because, like the users, they have no choice, because no alternative exists.

RSS. Website. Both have been around for a long time. We don't need to reinvent the wheel.

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