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XCancel service is suspended until further notice

xcancel.com

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Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#471

Post by jakevoytko »

trey-jones wrote: post #221

Regardless of the legality of the service: I always use xcancel instead of X. I don't have a twitter account and I don't want to sign in. I just occasionally want to read what some people had to say about something. Even this is usually a mistake. It's probably better taken as entertainment. My point is: companies stop making your product suck, and people won't have a reason to try and fix it for you.

I hate when companies do this. Instagram is a black box for me. Whenever someone sends me a link the web app is completely nonfunctional; clicking links just reload the page, it constantly tries opening the app, etc

The last time I signed up for an Instagram account (2016) it got immediately flagged as a bot account. I think I was supposed to appeal it to have it reinstanted, but why bother if this is how badly they treat users?

Can you imagine going to work as Instagram's web developer, spending your day finding new ways that the app accidentally works and disabling them?

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#472

Post by bpt3 »

asdff wrote: post #447
phforms wrote: post #434

I know it’s hard for some people (for understandable reasons), but at some point we have to ignore the X site completely and make politicians and public services/institutions aware that some people do not have or want access to the site. That is the only way anything might change someday. Maybe I’m just being naive here, but what else can you do? xcancel was amazing and I hope they can continue in some way. But since…

I don't understand who all these people are who keep saying 'but I need twitter for my local politicians.' Like really? I have not followed any local politicians or authorities twitter and I still get relevant information. Believe it or not, which you might not if all you do is parrot these comments and I have seen this very comment line of thinking parroted for YEARS about twitter, most people do not follow the city…

> Your utility will post a highly localized service outage that might only affect 1 block of a city or less to their world facing twitter feed? And not simply alert customers via their phone on file as they've done for me forever?

It doesn't match your very contrived example specifically, but yes essential services in my major metropolitan area provide more useful and timely information via twitter/X than other sources. People don't or can't register for updates from the city or county, so government organizations have no means of publishing information for public consumption other than social media, and twitter was the de facto standard.

Also, many local schools, clubs, etc. used it as their "official" source for updates for years.

You are definitely out of the loop if you can't access it, and places are glacially slow to change.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#473

Post by stymaar »

nkozyra wrote: post #468
ndiddy wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what Twitter's specific reasons are, but AFAIK the general trend of login-walling services over the past few years has happened due to a court decision saying that it's legal to scrape publicly available data ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HiQ_Labs_v._LinkedIn ). If they gate content behind a login wall and put a clause in the EULA forbidding scraping, this lets them use the CFAA to go after anybody who…

Effectively it forces scrapers to become a party to the terms of service, which usually contains the "no programmatic access (other than via paid API)" or specifically prohibits automated scraping.

How can an automated process be a party in the terms of services though?

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#474

Post by butlike »

brainwad wrote: post #257
darkwater wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Otherwise piracy would also be legal as long as it were non-profit... Which is in a few jurisdictions, or at least is not prosecuted if it's for personal use. Also, according to your definition, the creator of uBlock Origin or any other adblock system should be sued in the same way, because they are depriving $ADS_CORP of their precious impressions.

Well, adblockers don't copy the copyrighted content. They just control how it's rendered on the user's machine. Copyright cares about making copies and especially distributing them.

Xcancel isn't copying the copyrighted content either. It takes the raw JSON/HTML data from twitter/x via reverse proxy and redisplays it on xcancel, as opposed to twitter/x. How is that copying?

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#475

Post by larsmaxfield »

immibis2 wrote: post #355
larsmaxfield wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately not a luxury for all events. Some organizations only post information on Twitter, especially those with limited resources. And if their followers are themselves limited in number, then that information is not disseminated. For example, the Dutch Air Force is currently posting updates on their ongoing airborne exercise exclusively on Twitter: https://www.defensie.nl/onderwerpen/f/falcon-leap

Do you need updates about the Dutch Air Force's ongoing airborne exercise or can you just ignore that exercise? If they weren't posting it on Twitter but were only performing it for a live audience, would you clamor to be part of that audience? Or are you only interested because of the fact it's on Twitter?

It's the daily schedule I want. The exercise lasts 12 days and has a variable daily schedule that is posted day-of exclusively on Twitter. I have no interest in Twitter; I just want to know what time they'll fly by.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#476

Post by m3kw9 »

simondotau wrote: post #10

If you don’t like X, I don’t understand why anyone would use a service like XCancel, which effectively helps maintain the cultural relevance of X. On a practical level, I’m also wondering what consistent legal standard people want when it comes to things like terms of service and individuals' copyright. It's unworkable to maintain one rule for the awesome people we might like and and another rule for the horrible des…

Yeah i don't get it, using xcancel is like "that'll show ya" in a weak manner. You are seeing the same tweet.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#477

Post by WarmWash »

vladgur wrote: post #418
WarmWash wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Capital interests have this innate expectation that everything must be profitable. What rubs me the wrong way about statements like this, is that it is almost always said by people who totally miss that they are advocating for things that are personally profitable for them. A website that allows you to skirt paywalls, is immensely profitable to the end user. That same end user, who detests the idea of having to spen…

How does one not engage with the corporate product at all? Im typing a comment on a website of a corporation whose goal is to grow companies into corporations, via a computer manufactured by a corporation on a keyboard produced by a corporation, staring at a screen produced by a corporation, while connecting to an internet service offered by a corporation. Never mind that im also employed by a corporation, dressed by…

On some level there is local/small businesses. They are less efficient and hence you usually have to pay more for less, but it avoids the a lot of the "power structure" that people have strong distaste for.

On a deeper level there is none. Overwhelmingly peoples complaint is that they need to do something to get something, which is just how life is, a shared annoyance that is just a fact of reality.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#478

Post by tempaccountabcd »

squeegmeister wrote: post #427
maipen wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it wrong? Is it wrong to require people to use certain tools? I don’t think so. It’s the same thing as requiring dress code to go to the tribunal or anything formal. People here overthink so much about this topic.

Because the owner of said tool is a white nationalist

[dead]

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#479

Post by butlike »

immibis2 wrote: post #347
bluefirebrand wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's stupid, these courts are stupid It should have nothing to do with storing copies it should have to do with what the models can produce. And it's clear they can produce copyrighted works, they've just been tuned so they don't. That shouldn't satisfy anyone.

> they can produce copyrighted works, they've just been tuned so they don't. In other words... they can't. A different one can but this one can't. The court is not stupid, and will consider this fact.

They can't unless the tuner produces a copyrighted work for whatever their purpose would be, because they can step in and "detune" the thing at 3am for a competitive advantage.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#480

Post by rimunroe »

sekh60 wrote: post #343
rimunroe wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like that was MDY Industries, LLC v. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., which relied on MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc. for the relevant part of the ruling. The person I was responding to was saying that anytime you viewed copyrighted content with a browser you’d necessarily be committing copyright infringement. I’m not a lawyer but I can imagine that the reasoning there would be slightly different from…

Oh yeah, I understood your point, but given MDY Industries, LLC v .Blizzard who knows what the "right" judge would rule? With IP laws these days we're really getting into weird places.

Yeah I gotchu. I have no idea how that would go in a court for real. I was just trying to explain how and why things are the way they (sometimes) are
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