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Twitter's API is down?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Twitter's API is down?

#391

Post by ubermonkey »

zwily wrote: post #376
ubermonkey wrote: post #367

I only ever use Twitter via Tweetbot, which has never tried to show me something other than a chronological feed of posts from people I follow. I have absolutely no interest in a curated timeline, so I guess I'm done with Twitter if the API doesn't start working again.

The Twitter app just got an update that makes it easier to switch to the chronological timeline, and it appears to actually stick now. (At least it has so far). Doesn't avoid the ads though, which are still ubiquitous.

Twitter wasn't valuable enough to me BEFORE Elon bought it for me to put up with ads. It definitely isn't now.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#392

Post by wpietri »

dmitriid wrote: post #251
wpietri wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they were absolutely undoubtedly overstaffed Oh? What's your evidence here?

Personal anecdotes from any big company :) There's a second layer to the tragedy. Also applicable to any big company: - many teams are overstaffed for what they do/produce - many teams are understaffed for what they do/produce And this is also true at the same time.

Yeah, this is closer to the mark for me. It's been some years since I worked at Twitter, but if I had been suddenly made CEO, I wouldn't have gone on a mass firing spree. I would have tried to figure out how to more effectively use the people that Twitter had. As with many big companies, I suspect the problem is much more bad management than bad workers.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#393

Post by wpietri »

danaris wrote: post #330
kortilla wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp wasn’t a social network with public posts of rich media. It’s trivial from an architectural perspective because there isn’t anything that needs to be sent to millions of users.

Oh? So you're saying a company with a similar, but not identical, product might have completely different infrastructure and staffing needs? So we might not, in fact, be able to meaningfully compare Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc by headcount alone?

Exactly. It's very hard to know from the outside where the headcounts are or should be. E.g., Twitter had a ton of ML people. One could argue that was totally unnecessary, because Facebook didn't need that at date X. Or one could argue that they needed more of them, because it's the only way to wrangle the challenges of a large social network, and that hiring an ML person ends up being a net reduction in headcount because of the customer support/moderation people they replace.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#394

Post by 0898 »

invalidname wrote: post #147
0898 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “At the scale twitter exists right now it is anything but simple“ Elon should get real experts like Infosys or Wipro in to rebuild it.

Sometimes it's really hard to tell if people are joking or serious in HN...

I thought adding /s would kill the joke ;-)

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#395

Post by raydev »

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…

Twitter's audience in 2012 was significantly smaller. A far higher percentage of users are using the official apps now.

> this will vastly disproportionately hit influential users)

Maybe within the tech space, but again, Twitter's userbase has expanded outside of tech.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#396

Post by [deleted] »

nhtsamera wrote: post #291
counttheforks wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You shouldn't even need to run an "app". A phone is no different from a laptop, except that it is smaller and the mouse/keyboard are part of the screen. On my phone, I should be able to: * Open an IDE and write some code. * Compile my code (depending on the language). * Run my code. The whole concept of "app stores" is absurd. In 10 years, will we be denied sudo rights on our laptops? Will we need to pay a 30% cut to…

[deleted]

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#397

Post by raydev »

Mindwipe wrote: post #232
actualwitch wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing this requires a fair amount of development time, especially when you can break something else with this and you previously removed all the guardrails.

That didn't stop Facebook doing it (and breaking all kinds of stuff in the process).

Facebook had far more engineers available to do this sort of work.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#398

Post by noelsusman »

numpad0 wrote: post #107
natch wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, technically, chronological ordering is an algorithm. I wonder what you would want. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Tweets flowing at 250kbps or more 24/7, of course… Edit: the way “chronological” timeline works is, Twitter decides on your social graph and hide posts until it fits your serving. Shadowbans, Boosting and Deboosting are factored in as well. That is technically chronological, only technically.

In my experience it just shows me all the tweets from people I follow in chronological order.

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#399

Post by [deleted] »

concordDance wrote: post #216
mnd999 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rationale is to control the narrative and align Twitter’s politics with his own. It’s just like the hundred other rich dudes who bought newspapers over the years.

Admittedly there being a big right wing social media would be an interesting change. Curious to see how it goes (from a distance as I don't use twitter).

[deleted]

Re: Twitter's API is down?

#400

Post by supermatt »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #371
supermatt wrote: post #290

Unsurprisingly, the outage hasn't affected twitters own client. Roll on May 2023. Unless twitter want to block the EU, they will have to provide the same level of access to 3rd party clients as they do their own. If the API is down for 3rd parties, but not for twitters own client, that will be considered a breach.

Did you look at the Digital Market's Act? It's not at all going to be allowing 3rd party clients for services lol. This is more than a stretch of interpretation, it's wishful thinking.

Allowing 3rd parties to interoperate with the gatekeepers own services is one of the core obligations...

> Gatekeepers should ensure interoperability for third-party providers of number-independent interpersonal communications services that offer or intend to offer their number-independent interpersonal communications services to end users and business users in the Union. To facilitate the practical implementation of such interoperability, the gatekeeper concerned should be required to publish a reference offer laying down the technical details and general terms and conditions of interoperability with its number-independent interpersonal communications services.

> ‘interoperability’ means the ability to exchange information and mutually use the information which has been exchanged through interfaces or other solutions, so that all elements of hardware or software work with other hardware and software and with users in all the ways in which they are intended to function;

Maybe you are thinking of something other than the DMA?

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