X users are unable to post “Signal.me” links • Hacker News Board

Re: X users are unable to post “Signal.me” links

#231

Post by coldblues » Mon, Feb 17, 2025, 12:00 PM UTC

axegon_ wrote: post #217

coldblues wrote: post #202

The logical explanation to me is that most of the Signal contacts shared tend to be for drugs or CSAM trading, so they went for the nuclear approach to make moderation easier.

Give me a break, open telegram, which is still in the clear for comrade musk and he publicly advocated for comrade durov and tell me how long it will take you to find anything from prostitution to weapons, drugs and human trafficking. It's all about punishing people who can question musk & co's authoritarian desires.

Feds can request info from Telegram. Additionally, Telegram has evolved past a simple messenger application. A massive amount of projects, most of them being crypto projects, use Telegram as their primary method of communication and announcements. It is also a very popular messenger in India and parts of Europe. They can block Signal because they can get away with it. If it means banning a bunch of CSAM traders and drug dealers, even if it includes a few users and privacy nerds, they're still winning in terms of easing up their moderation efforts without significant outcry. I believe this block will be lifted, even if Signal users a minority, they are a loud minority. This could have very well been a mistake.

Re: X users are unable to post “Signal.me” links

#232

Post by scarab92 » Mon, Feb 17, 2025, 12:00 PM UTC

soulofmischief wrote: post #206

scarab92 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of journalists broke Twitters rule on doxxing, and were briefly suspended. Wikipedia cops a lot of criticism for being politically biased. The fact it has a whole article around this seems to support that.

When you say "Wikipedia" do you mean the site operators, or the volunteer editors? If there is a factually incorrect statement in the article, instead of complaining about bias you can always edit it or start a section in the Talk page on the article. Be a part of the group and reduce its perceived bias. The simple existence of a page that documents an event is not evidence of political bias, and that accusation says…

The editors.

The problem is that notability is very subjective, and wikipedia's editors are notorious for applying a low threshold for information critical of those on the right, and high threshold for information critical of the left.

Suspending a few journalists for doxxing would not meet the notability threshold for an article to exist, if it occured on any other platform.

Re: X users are unable to post “Signal.me” links

#233

Post by lawn » Mon, Feb 17, 2025, 12:00 PM UTC

alt227 wrote: post #196

xzjis wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Freedom of speech" on Twitter is nothing more than Newspeak for censorship. In reality, the goal has always been to silence minorities who already struggle to express themselves, while allowing hate, racist, homophobic, and transphobic language to run rampant. It is a form of indirect censorship, through the self-censorship of minorities who fear speaking out. Then comes direct censorship, where certain terms or lin…

> allowing hate, racist, homophobic, and transphobic language to run rampant Are the people with these views not also entitled to free speech and equal rights to express themselves the same as everybody else?

Free speech doesn't allow you to say anything at all you know?

Calling for the eradication of people with certain sexual preferences or skin color for example.

Re: X users are unable to post “Signal.me” links

#234

Post by rsynnott » Mon, Feb 17, 2025, 12:00 PM UTC

waonderer wrote: post #175

buyucu wrote: post #82

[flagged]

Which platform provides the same network effect? Bsky? Mastodon? I don't see the popular Twitter personalities there such as naval, balajis, paulg, etc. or folks from TOPT, etc.

I mean, I suppose it really depends on what you want out of a social network. Some combo of mastodon and bluesky is fine for me, but then I didn't follow any of those people in the first place.

If you want celeb VCs, then, yeah, you're probably stuck with Twitter. Most people don't, though.

Re: X users are unable to post “Signal.me” links

#235

Post by pjc50 » Mon, Feb 17, 2025, 12:00 PM UTC

lenkite wrote: post #224

j-bos wrote: post #113

This comment section has turned into something of a circle, it's cool to be mad nd all, but there was a comment expressing doubt at the details, wonder about a reason other than those stated, and asking if anyone independently verified, as I clicked it the comment was flagged to oblivion. No opportunity to engage with that viewpoint.

[flagged]

Everything political gets downvoted, from either side, but you're going to need better evidence than Musk and rumors for this fraud.

(There probably is some fraud! There is in any large money handling system! Japan had a problem with elderly people claiming pensions after they'd died, for example. It's just that you need a better standard of evidence before cutting off money that people are legally entitled to, because otherwise the fraud detection process is going to have false positives.)

Re: X users are unable to post “Signal.me” links

#236

Post by JansjoFromIkea » Mon, Feb 17, 2025, 12:01 PM UTC

berkes wrote: post #129

nxpnsv wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who owns bsky? What prevents a random billionaire to buy it and use it their election platform? Mastodon just feels as a safer bet...

bsky is decentralized, in theory more so than Mastodon, which is federated (a variant of decentralization that requires you to trust the server admins of a server of your choice) "In theory", because so far, there are very few nodes (one?), very few (if any?) alternative implementations, most is controlled and operated by a small team paid for by a.o. Jack Dorsey and other funds. Mastodon (using the ActivityPub proto…

I think a big pro for Bluesky from a tech perspective is how widely people are using their own websites as their handles and as verification. It doesn't do anything to protect Bluesky from going to hell but it does make it significantly easier to relink with people again.

Mastodon has failed to show any signs of hitting a critical mass so I kind of feel like it's a different level of social network altogether. A lot more durable and worth making an effort with but unlikely to ever become much more significant than it currently is.

Re: X users are unable to post “Signal.me” links

#237

Post by rsynnott » Mon, Feb 17, 2025, 12:01 PM UTC

berkes wrote: post #48

I'm not defending Twitter or their policy in any way (disclaimer: I left Twitter the moment Elmo took over. I despise his hypocrisy and his fascist ideas) But this could be a "legitimate f-up". Normally, most of these unsafe-url protection and detection is automated in something with the scale of Twitter. Just like URL-shorteners often are (were?) "seemingly randomly" banned, because a portion of the shared urls are…

I mean, this has been going on for years at this point (for instance see https://fortune.com/2022/12/18/twitter-suspends-paul-graham-...). At some point you have to stop extending the benefit of the doubt.

Re: X users are unable to post “Signal.me” links

#238

Post by scarab92 » Mon, Feb 17, 2025, 12:02 PM UTC

llamaimperative wrote: post #201

scarab92 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of journalists broke Twitters rule on doxxing, and were briefly suspended. Wikipedia cops a lot of criticism for being politically biased. The fact it has a whole article around this seems to support that.

> link to Watergate Scandal article > Wikipedia’s political bias confirmed

A president breaking the law, vs a few low-level journalists breaking a doxxing policy of a social media website.

Hardly equivalent in terms of notability.

Re: X users are unable to post “Signal.me” links

#239

Post by rsynnott » Mon, Feb 17, 2025, 12:02 PM UTC

Majestic121 wrote: post #99

buyucu wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

does the reason matter? regardless of whether it is a mistake or or censorship, the end result is the same.

The reason absolutely matter : a mistake can happen to anyone, and be fixed within a short time, while censorship is deliberate and will probably not be fixed

If a 'mistake' keeps happening for two years, then it is realistically not a mistake. This is not Musk!twitter's first 'mistake' of this nature, by a long shot.

Re: X users are unable to post “Signal.me” links

#240

Post by alt227 » Mon, Feb 17, 2025, 12:03 PM UTC

BSDobelix wrote: post #205

alt227 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anti-Semites have a pretty loud and public voice in the "Western" world So do Jews. So are we seeing full free speech in action? Or is whats right decided by which side people agree with?

>So are we seeing full free speech in action? Even free speech has its limits...for example calling for the extermination of a race. >Or is whats right decided by which side people agree with? Correct, most of the time it is, and that is exactly why laws (esp. international ones) exist and Justitia is/should be blind.

> Even free speech has its limits

It doesnt though, thats the point.

Its the same as competition in a capitalist marketplace. A company can sell terrible products and what should happen is people see they are terrible products and vote with their wallet to stop buying. Then the company goes out of business.

With free speech if somebody is saying something that other people think is terrible, they should stop listening to that person. They are still allowed to say anything they want, but their reputation is tarnished and hardly anybody listens to them and they loose their platform/influence.

In reality, people are weak and do not do these things. They keep buying the terrible products because they dont want to have to think about looking for a better alternative. They keep listening to the hate speech because its easier to respond in anger than to ignore the person. The solution to all these things is education and people spending more time thinking about how they respond to things in the world. Again in reality this wioll never happen, and so people will keep shouting and shouting about what they dont like until the world ends up destroying itself through hate and anger.