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XCancel service is suspended until further notice

xcancel.com

351–360 of 765 posts

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#351
post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are now telling me that I need an account to use old.reddit.com (the only usable version of Reddit UI). Needless to say, I have stopped visiting Reddit completely.

FWIW, Old Reddit Redirect manages to somehow still be usable without a user.

You're being A/B tested.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the claim is that the principled stance would be to ignore all X content.

Which is just the "yet you participate in society" meme again.

No, it's not. Don't be so intellectually lazy.

The author of the comment higher up is describing a person who is boycotting X because they are strongly against its stewardship and moderation but regardless continues to find ways to indulge themselves in the content produced by users of X, for other users of X.

How else should we describe the position held? It's clearly not entirely principled and veers directly into performative action (i.e. virtue signalling).

I admit I'm not nor have been a Twitter/X user so am able to look at the situation without a sense of entitlement or attachment.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are now telling me that I need an account to use old.reddit.com (the only usable version of Reddit UI). Needless to say, I have stopped visiting Reddit completely.

Perhaps more frustratingly, if you bite the bullet and browse the "new" version on your mobile browser, the page will eventually become non-responsive and have ~60% of your screen covered by a bottom banner that prompts you to download their app to continue. It's like they are actively trying to kill their userbase.

Like most big tech companies now, they are actively trying to kill their non-contributing userbase, where contributing means viewing an ad for every second post. They know that perhaps 5% of the non-contributing userbase they kill will become contributing userbase, while the other 95% will just leave, and this trade seems good to them.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#354
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations, Elon Musk has just forced you to either feed his propaganda machine or successfully locked you out of the conversation.

Given its extremely liberal content moderation policy, how is X a propaganda machine?

algo is what can make or break a propaganda machine.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People really need to just not visit it. You don’t need to browse Twitter to be on top of current events. Anything posted there will be available elsewhere within minutes (and hopefully it will have been vetted somewhat)

Unfortunately not a luxury for all events. Some organizations only post information on Twitter, especially those with limited resources. And if their followers are themselves limited in number, then that information is not disseminated. For example, the Dutch Air Force is currently posting updates on their ongoing airborne exercise exclusively on Twitter: https://www.defensie.nl/onderwerpen/f/falcon-leap

Do you need updates about the Dutch Air Force's ongoing airborne exercise or can you just ignore that exercise? If they weren't posting it on Twitter but were only performing it for a live audience, would you clamor to be part of that audience? Or are you only interested because of the fact it's on Twitter?

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scraping is legal, but IIRC scraping authenticated contents is not. Isn't Nitter abusing account sign-in for this?

Anyone can make an account, though, and instantly access that content, so Elon doesn't really have any leg to stand on by claiming they're private. It's not the same as Cambridge Analytica scraping stuff you had to have certain privileges to see by tricking the system into granting those privileges.

Elon unfortunately may have a leg to stand on, because it doesn't functionally matter whether "anyone can make an account and see it". I don't believe any legal ruling to date has been fine with that distinction.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can scrape twitter pretty easily yourself with an account (lots of free code on github) but that's the thing - you need an account which is legally complicated but for your own personal use you can just create a dummy account and you'll never be blocked.

Don't they require a phone number? Even if they don't, they probably require email. I don't really want to give them my main email and even less - phone number. So, buying an account seems like less of a hassle, than figuring out where to get a temporary email.

They make it really hard to get an account, no matter how legit you are, but if you eventually get one, you can plug it into your own private Nitter instance.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#359
post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are now telling me that I need an account to use old.reddit.com (the only usable version of Reddit UI). Needless to say, I have stopped visiting Reddit completely.

FWIW, Old Reddit Redirect manages to somehow still be usable without a user.

They do this by setting cookie "redesign_optout=true" for www.reddit.com (and then using that domain).

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#360
post #54
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose you're on HN and someone posts a link to X. Is the correct reaction 1. Pretend it isn't there. 2. Flag it and pretend it isn't there. 3. Flag it and read the content somewhere else in case it's relevant.

I wish HN would simply ban links to X.

If you think that's remotely viable, you'll be very surprised what most of the YC partners believe and post about on X.
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