Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

XCancel service is suspended until further notice

xcancel.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

991–1000 of 1001 posts

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#991

Post by account42 »

mitxela wrote: post #919
pibaker wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be a law mandating government agencies to not limit their electronic communications to private third party platforms. If they post something on Twitter, or worse, Facebook, they must also provide a copy of the post on their own website. Some kind of online government gazette, if you will. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_gazette

How would you define it so the internet wouldn't also be considered a third-party platform?

ISPs and infrastructure in the Internet are generally considered common carriers unlike social media platform who can do whatever they want. I don't understand why you think this would be hard to define at all.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#992

Post by b112 »

tovej wrote: post #952
benrutter wrote: post #930

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's a really good point that I hadn't really considered. Although, maybe the same argument stands? If X's lockdown leads to less users, then doesn't that translate to less control over the information landscape too?

Well, if one of the big social media platforms is now a far-right playground, that changes the political landscape. Elon Musk is using twitter to create a global far-right platform that right-wing politicians can use to experiment with talking points before watering them down and bringing them to the public.

All media orgs have X accounts, and see such things. And posts on X are in the news regularly.

So I don't think experimentation is an angle.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#993

Post by n_plus_1_acc »

philip-b wrote: post #479
DavCreator wrote: post #379

https://xxcancel.com is up and redirecting to working Nitter instances.

Is there a way to make Firefox autoredirect to that?

uBlock Origin can do it, no need for something else

https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/discussions/26...

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#994

Post by newswasboring »

mafuy wrote: post #927
caymanjim wrote: post #804

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's basically impossible to not engage with any corporate products at all. It's trivially-easy to not engage with specific corporate products. I don't engage with Twitter, because I won't sign up and that makes it useless to me. I'm not missing out on anything I care about.

Just one example: Facebook is mandatory for school/university in large parts of Asia. You cannot trivially block them. They should be considered an utility.

How did facebook make its way into education like this? Can you explain to an outsider?

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#995

Post by account42 »

jrflo wrote: post #845
riknos314 wrote: post #811

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public communications from government entities really should be legally required to be disseminated on public forums (ideally properly hosted on .gov domains for easy verification, with RSS feeds) Cross-posting on other platforms should be allowed (with backlink to the .gov), but the .gov should be authoritative.

Unfortunately that requires a level of technical competence that most government entities don't have in the US. Not to mention the ridiculous requirements/processes that are placed on official govt software.

Technical competence can be acquired as needed. Or more likely the other way around, the government creates an entity that provides this competence to other government entities.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#996

Post by richrichardsson »

jakevoytko wrote: post #470
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…

> immediately flagged as a bot account

You have to disable all ad-blocking (either extensions or Pi-Hole) in order to make it past that "feature".

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#997

Post by account42 »

simondotau wrote: post #843
mahboi wrote: post #799

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, most of the people are upset because they're Democrats politically on Twitter, and the old one catered to them.

As far as I can tell, the only way Twitter has substantively changed over the past few years is that a small (but non-trivial) number of politically obsessed left-wingers have voluntarily self-exited. Everything else is narrative.

It's also become a whole lot more hostile to anonymous visitors, hence the topic under discussion. That's not just narrative but a fact.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#998

Post by moomin »

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.

Indeed, with the best will in the world, nothing on X is that essential. XCancel is the only way I read it.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#999

Post by alex1138 »

jakevoytko wrote: post #470
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…

I'm sorry that I keep posting this but it gets said often enough that I'm just going to hopefully kill it permanently

People say repeatedly Instagram was a 'great acquisition' (it was. It destroyed Facebook's competition. Great for them, not for users). That Zuckerberg bought it when it was 'barely a company'. That it's somehow not antitrust (Zuckerberg in emails: "Instagram can hurt us"). People loved Instagram. Not anymore, not for a long time. Stop giving him the benefit of the doubt

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#1000

Post by knollimar »

alt227 wrote: post #971
harrisoned wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same reason is wrong to require a Google or Apple phone to exercise basic civil duties within government services. You are gating the service, or information, behind a 3rd party ToS, a login, and basically stating that you are not allowed to have it until you hand over personal data to such companies.

I've made this same comment several times now. To live in our 'free' western society, you need to register your birth, get a social security number, and attend state dictated education. Life in general is now gated, and if you do not abide by the rules you do not get the benefits of society. How is this any different to "you are not allowed to have it until you hand over personal data".

Gated by a provate company where they have no recourse if they ban you is an issue. Also they just repeatedly boil to frog with anti user experiences. No, I won't install your app!
Post reply on HN