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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

#771

Post by ValentineC »

Henchman21 wrote: post #624
nullocator wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a criticism, but I do think this comment actually raises part of the problem. There are people on twitter telling people they should be on twitter, and it's apparently effective enough that at least some people are still signing up or trying to at least. The world needs more of the inverse, people telling those they care about who are on twitter to get off it.

And likewise, continuing to call it "Twitter" when that is long dead, which has amazingly positive brand association as near as I can tell entirely from the name doesn't do any of us a service. If you want people to stop using it call it "X". Not something clever, like "Shitter" -- which I personally enjoy! Just call it by what it was intentionally renamed to: "Oh you mean X? No I don't take part in that hateful stuf…

I call it "former Twitter" to honour the good times, and maybe because deep down I hope it'll one day escape from fElon Musk's evil clutches.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#772

Post by Plont »

redeeman wrote: post #760
myko wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my understanding is twitter is primarily bots at this point i'm surprised any human is still there

then your understanding seems to be quite limited :)

what even was the point of typing that? it just reads as kindergarten bully on an ipad.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#773

Post by maxlin »

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…

Or, you know, just be a normal reasonable person and just use X.

We got to get rid of this extremist-esque narrative. X is more unbiased than it has ever been, and Community Notes work better than any other platform's nearest attempts.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#775

Post by pmyteh »

ryandrake wrote: post #726
kelnos wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect that the percentage of politicians and public services/institutions who have even heard of xcancel is incredibly small. The real way to combat this is to write to your representative. The best way is probably to ask questions about something you care about, and when they reply "I've posted about this on X", tell them you are unable/unwilling to use that platform, and as a government official they should not…

> The real way to combat this is to write to your representative. I always kind of chuckle at this advice. Is there any case of a representative changing their mind on an issue because someone wrote to them about it? I've written to representatives in the past and you are always going to get one of two outcomes: 1. If you are writing in support of something the representative already agrees with, you'll get a form le…

My experience of being on the other end of this is quite old (2001-2002) but I doubt the fundamental dynamics have changed.

There are some things for which your representative absolutely has a fixed vote, either because they personally have a strong view or because political constraints (district demographics, internal party pressure, whatever) are significant. For other things, they will likely pattern match against their broad inclinations (for free trade, anti taxes, for green energy, whatever) at least as an initial position. For many issues, though, your representative probably doesn't care much at all, by default.

But the ways things move from the second or third boxes to the first are pressure (enough voters/co-partisans/whoever caring makes inaction politically expensive), money (election campaigns cost cash and so cash buys attention if not actual votes on legislation), or convincement.

If enough people write on some esoteric subject someone in the rep's office will notice, because tracking political issues is part of their job. Staffers help shape reps' policy positions and voting behaviour, at least in part because reps are too busy to pay attention to everything that comes up. And if the campaign is big and noisy enough that it threatens to become a major electoral issue then that will also force a decision one way or another. So it is possible to influence positions and behaviour, but not on every issue and very likely not if you're doing it alone (and don't write large cheques).

You'll definitely get a form letter for anything they have a form letter for, though. And even without then the actual letter is likely written by an intern or junior staffer (or I guess GAI these days). But then when I was reading incoming mail most of that was form letters and pre-printed campaign postcards too, so it was difficult to feel too regretful that the replies were mostly mass-produced rather than artisanal.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#776

Post by murderfs »

immibis2 wrote: post #705
brushfoot wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true. Creating an account requires agreeing to the ToS. And if the ToS prohibit this kind of usage, then legally, it's not allowed. See hiQ Labs vs. LinkedIn. hiQ was scraping LinkedIn using accounts, and they were found to be in breach of LinkedIn's terms.

It depends what you mean by "not allowed". Breaking ToS isn't a crime, but you might be sued for damages, but how can they show there were any damages?

It seems pretty easy? Someone viewing it through a mirror isn't going to see ads.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#777

Post by pdonis »

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…

> How does one not engage with the corporate product at all?

By not using it. Which is exactly why I don't use X or Facebook, and minimize my use of Google (I use DuckDuckGo for search, and as Maps continues to suck more I use it less).

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#778

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#779

Post by pdonis »

swed420 wrote: post #628
WarmWash wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not totally dismissive of FLOSS, but it's kind of a unique situation so you can't really extrapolate broad generalities about society from it. Software basically has zero marginal cost, and is pretty unique in that regard. If baking 1 loaf of bread was identical to baking 10,000,000 loafs, we would have solved hunger centuries ago... There also is the fact that a large amount of FLOSS is an exercise in resume bui…

> There also is the fact that a large amount of FLOSS is an exercise in resume building (FLOSS contributions is SWE resume building 101) Not all of it. Plus, we could say the same thing about the typical worker at the average modern company. Google's product graveyard is a popular example of this. Resume padding, job hopping and ladder climbing are the norm now. In that respect, I can see why you're so pessimistic ab…

> valued employees actually believed in the shared mission they were all striving for, and they took pride in their work as a result.

And then it turned out that all that was a long con by the companies, who started reneging on all their promises of lifetime employment, good benefits, and retirement pensions as soon as the costs of those things began to exceed the profits available to them by using those promises to attract employees.

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