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XCancel service is suspended until further notice

xcancel.com

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Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#781

Post by conception »

immibis2 wrote: post #194
27183 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spot on. This is where a lot of these "terms and conditions" break down logically. Viewing some content on the internet is literally copying it . So is the distinction that xcancel served the content? But when I run mtr xcancel.com I see a bunch of hops between me and them. Every one of those hops is literally copying and retransmitting all the content. Are they not also serving it?

No, this is where programmers rules-lawyer in ways that actual lawyers don't and then get law stuff hilariously wrong. No judge thinks that viewing an HTML page is downloading it, because downloading means saving a copy to your computer, not just looking at it. Even having an internet cache folder doesn't count as downloading. Even copying the file from the internet cache folder to somewhere might not count as downlo…

I think its more than the law doesn’t understand the technology.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#782

Post by [deleted] »

simondotau wrote: post #10

If you don’t like X, I don’t understand why anyone would use a service like XCancel, which effectively helps maintain the cultural relevance of X. On a practical level, I’m also wondering what consistent legal standard people want when it comes to things like terms of service and individuals' copyright. It's unworkable to maintain one rule for the awesome people we might like and and another rule for the horrible des…

[deleted]

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#784

Post by Plont »

mitxela wrote: post #731
mapontosevenths wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody needs social media of any sort. Everyone should just turn it off and stop making excuses for yourselves to stay addicted. That said, it's easier said than done. Trust me, I know. I'm not sure I would class Youtube as social media. It can be, but some people just watch it on their TV's and never engage in a social way at all.

HN is social media.

I'm really just here because Google is shit and there are only so many alternative ways to find an aggregation of links to potentially interesting tech articles. I'm hoping to find new blogs or sites to follow, in part so I can stop coming here.

I might give up on it soon though, like I've given up on reddit. Too many junk article lately.

As for my commenting, that's because I, like everyone else here, am a bit of an idiot. HN makes it easy enough to comment that it's hard to resist sometimes.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#785

Post by pdonis »

immibis2 wrote: post #341
WarmWash wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the evidence in the world that corporations are greedy doesn't detract from the fact the end users are also greedy. It's all greed, all the ways down. I also can't read the article, not going to make an account, and I stand by not backdooring.

What's wrong with that? Capitalism is about everyone being as greedy as possible. If you aren't greedy while your adversary is greedy, you give up everything you have.

> Capitalism is about everyone being as greedy as possible.

Depends on what you mean by "capitalism". The current definition, at least among the big-time capitalists, seems indeed to be "do whatever it takes to get me more capital, by hook or by crook".

But that's not what actually built most of the wealth in the modern world. What built most of that was cooperation, specialization, and positive sum trades, in which everyone involved became better off, but nobody obsessed about counting down to the last penny exactly how much better off they were than the next person, and complaining about unfairness if things didn't balance out exactly the way they thought things should. In other words, focusing on creating wealth, not on grabbing whatever you can, or making sure you grabbed more than anyone else.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#786

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

asdff wrote: post #439
sureglymop wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because X is chosen (wrongfully) as the main communications channel of all kinds of important public institutions and people (police departments, city administrations, politicians, etc.). Of course that's a real issue since the whole thing is login gated and inaccessible. But unfortunately it is the reality. So I think something like XCancel is needed.

I have no clue what my local government or any such authority could possibly tweet that would be relevant to me. I have not checked their twitter feeds ever and I am none the worse for wear.

For the most obscene example, life safety critical announcements during disasters.

Usually just information about events, road closures etc.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#787

Post by pdonis »

sureglymop wrote: post #47
simondotau wrote: post #10

If you don’t like X, I don’t understand why anyone would use a service like XCancel, which effectively helps maintain the cultural relevance of X. On a practical level, I’m also wondering what consistent legal standard people want when it comes to things like terms of service and individuals' copyright. It's unworkable to maintain one rule for the awesome people we might like and and another rule for the horrible des…

It's because X is chosen (wrongfully) as the main communications channel of all kinds of important public institutions and people (police departments, city administrations, politicians, etc.). Of course that's a real issue since the whole thing is login gated and inaccessible. But unfortunately it is the reality. So I think something like XCancel is needed.

> It's because X is chosen (wrongfully) as the main communications channel of all kinds of important public institutions and people (police departments, city administrations, politicians, etc.).

What's really crazy about all this is that it isn't even necessary. I get emergency alerts from my county for things like severe weather warnings, mosquito spraying, etc. You know how I get them? Text messages and email. And you know how I find out more if I want to? I go to their website.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#788

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

frumplestlatz wrote: post #344
vrganj wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a pretty in-depth investigation into the workings of X as far-right propaganda machine: https://news.sky.com/story/the-x-effect-how-elon-musk-is-boo... > right-wing content was shown most prominently, regardless of users' political leaning. > Left-wing users saw almost the same amount of left-wing and right-wing content, even though they only followed left-wing accounts. But only 14% of the political content s…

So journalists ran a study with extremely poor sampling, base rate, and classification methodology designed by left-wing researchers and activists groups (including groups explicitly opposed to X), found the conclusions they wanted to find, and spent the second half of their article decrying the lack of heavy-handed moderation that pre-Musk Twitter used to control speech. All we can actually derive from that article…

Researchers use whatever tools are available, you cannot complaint about imperfect methodology when Elon refuses to provide researchers access to their APIs in order to do a better job at assessing the state of the system.

But for whatever it's worth I had made a new account around the same time and my experience was very similar to what was reported.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#789

Post by asdfman123 »

swed420 wrote: post #303
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.

> My point is: companies stop making your product suck, and people won't have a reason to try and fix it for you. That assumes the company's behavior is rooted in ineptitude rather than malice, which is too generous at this point. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49695912

My biggest pet peeve is when people on sites like HN assume software should be tailor made for their objectives and not the company's objectives.

Sometimes the objectives align, but not always. And yes, the world would be a better place if they were better aligned, but we don't live in that world.

I'm sure X's motivation is something along the lines of forcing logins creates more users, or the downside of scraping outweighs the benefits.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#790

Post by spullara »

like_any_other wrote: post #672
spullara wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't think there is a page on x that just gives you a login wall that a normal non-logged in user would go to. if you link to something like a tweet or a profile page it shows you them. these services are for scraping.

Don't lie. When not logged in, if you visit someone's profile, X shows you only 5 tweets. If you visit a tweet, only 3 replies are visible. It's not "scraping" (which is perfectly fine and legal to scrape public content by the way) - you cannot read conversations or follow someone's posts in any meaningful capacity without logging in.

it is legal if you can do it, doesn't mean they have to like it. keeping features for logged in seems super reasonable to me.
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