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XCancel service is suspended until further notice

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Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#501

Post by pino83 »

kijashdkujdfhas wrote: post #438
pino83 wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not because this is also my opinion (I have a lot of opinions that people don't share, and I completely don't care, believe me!), but for deeper reasons, I'd love to understand why this is so unpopular, although it's absolutely what every sane person would do in everyday cases. My only explanation would be to imagine all down-voters as chain smokers when they get involved into discussions whether smoking is a good th…

People don't like to be reminded that they're hanging out at the Nazi Bar. Standing outside and looking through the Nazi Bar's window is still pretty much hanging out at the Nazi Bar. It still brings traffic and attention to their establishment. Sure, it's not buying drinks from the Nazis, and that is an improvement over being inside and giving Nazis your money and engagement directly. But it's still hanging out at t…

Yes, I like the analogy. Even if you don't agree with "Nazi", it makes the illustration quite obvious:

There is a bar that scares you off so much that you wouldn't even go in. So there must be something fundamentally wrong with it. It's not just not your favorite beer, but you absolutely avoid even to enter. There must be a strong reason for that, right?

What people are then important enough to watch through the windows? I mean, at first, you just make a fool of yourself. Just imagine the analogy. That's exactly xcancel and friends, right? And then, don't forget: These people explicitly do not share your view in a matter fundamental and important enough for you to not enter the bar.

Are they friends? I can't imagine friendships with these differences really need that deep devotion.

Are they politicians? Maybe there are enough media around you that already preprocess the conversations at the Nazi bar for you?

Wider community (around your job, hobby, ...)? That's probably the most challenging one. But still, wouldn't it be definitely the goal to push them to better places? I know it's not a matter of a day or two, but why couldn't we at least agree on that goal, and then start acting in some way?

btw: This is not specific to X or Musk imho. There are other networks out there that aren't in control of such a madman today, but they share a lot of problematic properties.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#502

Post by gfdd »

timcobb wrote: post #369
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.

Twitter itself doesn't even suck too much for me it's the broader context that makes it a no go

[dead]

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#503

Post by bluecalm »

roosterIllusi0n wrote: post #179
simianparrot wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the users of X consent to XCancel copying their posts to their servers?

Why can't they distill twitter when AI companies distill everything including twitter? Distilling is copying and redistributing.

Because LLM's output is not copyrightable?

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#505

Post by scottyah »

butlike wrote: post #437
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…

Well, to be fair, time is more valuable than money. You can't make more time.

Scarcity is only one factor in a valuation. You can't make more of my boogers yet I doubt you'd trade any of your time or money for them haha.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#506

Post by WarmWash »

kennywinker wrote: post #457
WarmWash wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of which has more the 1-2% of twitters MAU. If any of those were highly profitable, they would be able to grow. But more profit for them, means less profit for users, means they are stuck fighting over crumbs from Twitter.

You've moved the goalpost. The internet is happy to create alternatives. Network effects mean it's VERY hard to change the default social network once it's established. I hate using facebook marketplace, but over the past 6-ish years everybody in my city has moved off craigslist to marketplace - so now I use marketplace because otherwise I can't sell my shit. Am I the problem? - also, an aside, but threads has 400 mi…

>Am I the problem?

Is the person who stays home and doesn't vote the problem?

Network effects are strong, but trends can absolutely upend them with disruptions. This is much harder nowadays, because for each user who refuses ads or a subscription, your VC runway needs to be that much longer, or your megacorp parent (meta) needs to sustain you.

My core point is that if the internet hates the current status quo, they need to drop their current status quo (free/no ads or bust). We're stuck in a local minimum because people absolutely refuse to even consider the idea of paying (in any form) to move out of it, and they pat themselves on the back for it.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#507

Post by immibis2 »

WarmWash wrote: post #379
immibis2 wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with that? Capitalism is about everyone being as greedy as possible. If you aren't greedy while your adversary is greedy, you give up everything you have.

The wrong part is fooling yourself that you are above those principles while actively devoting all your energy too them. And I'm not talking food, water, medicine here. I'm talking entertainment and general internet stuff.

If you aren't being maximally greedy in all things, including entertainment and general internet stuff, you aren't doing capitalism right.

The current global power imbalance was shaped to a large part by us not being greedy while the rich people were being greedy. It only resulted in them owning all of our stuff. It's about time we tried to own their stuff, to restore balance.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#508

Post by immibis2 »

kijashdkujdfhas wrote: post #438
pino83 wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not because this is also my opinion (I have a lot of opinions that people don't share, and I completely don't care, believe me!), but for deeper reasons, I'd love to understand why this is so unpopular, although it's absolutely what every sane person would do in everyday cases. My only explanation would be to imagine all down-voters as chain smokers when they get involved into discussions whether smoking is a good th…

People don't like to be reminded that they're hanging out at the Nazi Bar. Standing outside and looking through the Nazi Bar's window is still pretty much hanging out at the Nazi Bar. It still brings traffic and attention to their establishment. Sure, it's not buying drinks from the Nazis, and that is an improvement over being inside and giving Nazis your money and engagement directly. But it's still hanging out at t…

> and that is an improvement over being inside and giving Nazis your money and engagement directly

If you convert someone who was buying drinks into someone who only looks through the window, the world gets less Nazi. If you convert someone who was passing by into someone who looks through the window, the world gets more Nazi. And we see both classes of people in this thread - people who think each of those directions is dominant.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#509

Post by immibis2 »

kijashdkujdfhas wrote: post #241
immibis2 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One possible decision is to use a deshittifying front-end, like Nitter.

It is a half-measure, though. It reduces Twitter's traffic a little. It screws with some of their metrics a little, with the shared accounts having access patterns of several humans all mixed together. It might affect revenue a little. It doesn't do much to address the underlying issue of there being people who you might want to hear from who primarily post their content on a platform owned by a white nationalist. If…

It takes away the impulse to engage, hopefully, since you can't engage through Nitter, only observe.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#510

Post by immibis2 »

rimunroe wrote: post #232
immibis2 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes more sense when you remember it's not a computer program and the things that are written in the law are not the things that will actually happen in the way that "if(foo) bar;" makes bar happen if foo is true. It's more like a book of excuses you could use for why you didn't do your homework. Then the other side also has to bring an excuse for why you were supposed to do it, and if the principal thinks their…

And this example is not just due to people not taking the trouble to write fully specified rules. I don't think such rules could even be written. You can just do your best to cover the cases you can think of. The complexity of society is incomprehensibly vast and constantly changing, and the law has to have wiggle room to account for it.

You don't want fully-specified rules because a rule with strict boundaries has loopholes. You actually want a clearly allowed area, a clearly disallowed area, and a gradually increasing gradient of punishment in between, so that a small change in behaviour produces only a small change in punishment, and avoiding punishment requires a large change in behaviour.
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