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Twitter's API is down?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Twitter's API is down?

#261

Post by WJW »

mschuster91 wrote: post #171
highwaylights wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half an order of magnitude bigger, at most. A regional outage of that size is embarrassing whatever way you slice it. Leaving all that aside, he’s driving a massive subset of his users away at a time when he really needs all the users he can get. You can spin this however you like, this is not a good situation for him. He’s said as much outright and implied it repeatedly. Since this time last year he’s said that both…

> Since this time last year he’s said that both Twitter and SpaceX are likely months from bankruptcy At least in the case of SpaceX the US government will more likely than not step in and nationalize them out of national security requirements.

That's nice for the US space industry, but won't help Elon in the slightest with his money problems.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#262

Post by jeroenhd »

amelius wrote: post #185
samwillis wrote: post #67

It would not surprise me if this is the end of third party clients and the new owner has removed access. Very disappointing if he has, particularly if he's done it with zero notice too. He has been making significant noise of feature changes in the official client coming in the next couple of weeks. Removing the third party client access would align with that, along with removing the little "posted by ..." note on ea…

Can't we have the EU force them to provide an API and thus interoperability with competitors? Also, the whole silo thing reminds me of the old telephony days. We got over that, so what is the problem now?

I don't think they'll force a specific API, but the DMA forces messaging companies to interoperate and I wouldn't think Twitter would be exempted.

I wouldn't be surprised if the EU would force Twitter to interoperate with ActivityPub if they go so far as to disable API access. The EU already has their own Mastodon server so some people already have knowledge of the possibilities of decentralised social media and they also have a huge anti-big-tech stance.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#263

Post by jedisct1 »

I've been active on Twitter for the past 15 years, thanks to its API and nice clients such as Echofon and TweetBot.

I never understood anything to their website nor app, and will certainly not use Twitter any more if that becomes the only way to use it. What made Twitter great is its API and ecosystem around it.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#264

Post by paulcole »

counttheforks wrote: post #227
Nextgrid wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will have 2 problems with this: 1) the law, at least in the US. Laws such as copyright and maybe even the CFAA have been abused to outlaw adversarial interoperability. You'd need to either practice good opsec and operate anonymously or be based out of reach of US-allied law enforcement. 2) Apple (and maybe Google too?) - they will remove any client for a third-party service unless said client has explicit approva…

Another point to show what Apple's true goal is: To kill general computing. If you buy an iPhone you should be able to run whatever app you want on it. But no, Apple knows best and will not permit you to do anything it doesn't approve of. As for the APIs being copyrightable see Google vs Oracle.

> If you buy an iPhone you should be able to run whatever app you want on it.

I hear this sentiment quite often on HN. Maybe I’m missing something but was this tacked onto the end of those stone tablets that Moses brought down from the mountain?

If not, then it seems like people want this to be a statement of fact when the reality is much closer to:

> If I buy an iPhone I wish I could run whatever app I want on it.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#265

Post by rvnx »

kortilla wrote: post #172
highwaylights wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half an order of magnitude bigger, at most. A regional outage of that size is embarrassing whatever way you slice it. Leaving all that aside, he’s driving a massive subset of his users away at a time when he really needs all the users he can get. You can spin this however you like, this is not a good situation for him. He’s said as much outright and implied it repeatedly. Since this time last year he’s said that both…

>SpaceX are likely months from bankruptcy Companies months from bankruptcy don’t get to take a higher valuation in a down market: https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/2023/01/03/elon-musks-space...

SpaceX is a great company, worth investing into, because of their ISP + phone telco business (lot of people are ready to pay a high price for that) and a very difficult space technology to reproduce, nobody is going to compete soon. Twitter is different, it's more like MySpace.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#266

Post by wildpeaks »

rsynnott wrote: post #240

It's worth noting that we've been here before; back in 2012 Twitter attempted to curtail third party clients (albeit in a far more organised, less haphazard way): https://thenextweb.com/news/twitter-4 Eventually, they stepped back from the brink, presumably after realising that it was a phenomenally stupid idea (while the fraction of Twitter users using third party clients is likely small, anyone who's anyone uses a…

That's even what caused the creation of App.net (as a social network): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App.net

At the time I backed it at the developer tier as soon as the crowdfunding campaign was available and keep fond memories of it.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#267

Post by misnome »

esperent wrote: post #105
sho wrote: post #18

This might be the last straw. I flat out refuse to use their horrible app with its nonsense algorithmic timeline. Give it a few hours to see if it's permanent but if it is, I expect a huge wave of new mastodon users..

Let's be real, if your "last straw" moment wasn't several weeks ago it's unlikely this is gonna be it. But if it is, shame on you. All the silencing of journalists, banning accounts for saying "mastodon", or saying anything negative about Tesla, or criticizing Musk in any way, that didn't do it. But now you have been mildly inconvenienced and it's the last straw. Really?

Yes, if this inconvenience is the case, this is definitely the last straw. Despite yours, and apparently the new owner's perspective, not everyone on twitter talks about or cares much for Tesla and metadrama, it's the people we follow, and how.

But half of my timeline, and most of my colleagues have left, the only thing that has kept me on so far is that the Tapbots Mastodon app https://tapbots.com/ivory/ isn't ready yet, because I like their UIs. Meanwhile I've collected lists and screenshots of where the people leaving said they were going. I've not had an actual reason to physically move over yet though; forced to use the site would be that.

I've been using third-party clients for over a decade, every time I've had to use the site directly it has been a nightmare. With a client app you never saw people you didn't follow anyway, and so as long as it's more effort to leave than stay... you don't have to think about it. Even if it is only specific third-party clients - then even the job of searching for and finding a different client is more effort than I want to put towards this site and its new ownership..

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#268

Post by jsjohnst »

onion2k wrote: post #241
jsjohnst wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't announce anything if you've fired the comms team. Elon fired the Tesla PR team and yet announcements still are made, usually as Tweets from him. It sucks, but a comms team isn’t necessary assuming you are ok with substandard communication.

and yet announcements still are made Elon's tweets aren't the same as announcements from Twitter. He tweets as an individual. Twitter, the company , is a blackhole as far as comms goes. There is no news in any official capacity from the company any more.

> Elon's tweets aren't the same as announcements from Twitter.

I’m not saying it’s sane, but in his eyes, yes they are, just like his tweets about Tesla.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#269

Post by tsimionescu »

mrtksn wrote: post #244
tsimionescu wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck OCR-ing images and videos, though. Twitter isn't just text.

Why do I need to OCR images and videos? Why not display those as-is?

Which one do you show for which tweet, if all you have is the OCR (that is, you can't read the markup)?

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#270

Post by viraptor »

numpad0 wrote: post #120
SllX wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically I’m having trouble reading this because I’m on my phone and Twitter URLs go to Tweetbot. So I’m guessing that’s on the list.

Twitter allowing ban evasion and discussions about it had been a real clever move IMO. Users make a lot of noises and calls for exodus, none working, because it always happens inside the very platform.

It's not really "none working". It's different from community to community. Some of them did close to a mass migration. Enough that my plain Twitter timeline is extremely quiet now. Not everyone will see the same effects though.
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