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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

#921

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.

X should provide an option to make youor posts public. And govt reps should be required to use it.

govts should be forbidden from using X. Or any other commercial for-profit message service.

It's not like one-way communication is a hard problem. Just post that stuff on a website ffs!

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#922
post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if the new owners of twitter give a shit about its sustainability. It is all about capturing the platform to change the conversation around 2024 US presidential election cycle and US politics. It’s effectively become a political propaganda machine owned by billionaires

He was forced to buy it after desperately trying to pull out, and shitlibs cheered.

He wasn't forced to sign the original agreement to buy it. He was forced to uphold the agreement he already signed.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#923
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very much on the side of xcancel and nitter on this one, but I do think it's fair to point out that Twitter is free of monetary charge. It's not free in the sense that you do have to provide some personal information and data to them in exchange for that free account, but it isn't a huge roadblock for most people, however annoying it may be. Now that said, I sure hope Elon will pivot this and make these services…

The biggest frustration for a lot of people is that their municipalities use Twitter almost exclusively to communicate with their constituents, it _sucks_. I've pleaded and begged my city and county to have some other form of communication, in addition to Twitter/X, to mass distribute information.

Be the change to want to see. Mirror their tweets on cityname.com

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#924

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. Boy this would be nice! X have obviously decided that using the law to take down people fixing its issues is more profitable than fixing them. I'm really curious though, are they right? (Ignoring ethics etc) I used to glance at Twitter when it was less hostile, now I don't bother since it tries to force y…

Is the point really to be profitable? Or could perhaps its owners be willing to risk losing money for more power over the information landscape?

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#925

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter heavily censors speech on the platform itself by downranking things they do not like without any transparency.

Back when they disliked and downranked the opposite kind of thing, nobody on your side agreed that it was "censorship".

Is there a difference between downranking "gas the Jews" and downranking "trans women are women", or are those both equally bad censorship?

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#926

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is. It seems self-evident to me that the speech on Twitter is more free when it isn't behind a login wall. How could it not be? If you'd like to provide an actual counter-argument, I'd be happy to consider it.

Free Speech isn’t about who is listening, it’s about who is speaking. Just because you can’t hear it doesn’t necessarily mean the person did not speak freely.

That is the Musk philosophy - if you disagree with him, you can say it but nobody will hear it.

This is functionally the same as you not being able to say it.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#927
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is arguing about the legal boundary of Freedom of speech, you're the only one making this argument. We're talking about the quolloquial "free speech", here.

Could you give your colloquial definition, because its clearly different than mine.

Speech is more free when there are less barriers to receiving it.

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#928
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, or local governments, or governments in general, seems strange to me too. But then probably they'd use Facebook/Instagram/Whatever instead of Twitter if Twitter wasn't available, and seemingly it's impossible for them to use something that isn't built like a panopticon that also wants to slurp up as much data from their users as possible.

There should be a law mandating government agencies to not limit their electronic communications to private third party platforms. If they post something on Twitter, or worse, Facebook, they must also provide a copy of the post on their own website. Some kind of online government gazette, if you will. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_gazette

How would you define it so the internet wouldn't also be considered a third-party platform?

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#929
post #850

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately that requires a level of technical competence that most government entities don't have in the US. Not to mention the ridiculous requirements/processes that are placed on official govt software.

It is 2026, it is not hard to publish a "blog" , if you want to share that same content over social networks that's fine but it should be a requirement that the data doesn't solely live in private walled "social" networks

How is posting on wordpress.com or tumblr.com any different from posting on x.com?

Re: XCancel service is suspended until further notice

#930
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't. We know this because there was a time before xcancel and people just accepted they needed an account. It can happen - nobody would post an Instagram link to HN. But for X it did not happen. Notice the EU's Digital Markets Act is a liability shield for Nitter instances hosted in the EU.

That assumes the people who need XCancel most are aware of its existence, but from what I can tell only folks like us are.

In the time before xcancel, nobody was aware of xcancel, that's correct.
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