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Some Indian Twitter users are leaving for Mastodon

130 points by johnx123-up 7y ago

r_singh 7y ago
I recently signed up on Twitter with a new account for a new project I'm working on. Like a few posts here (on HN) have highlighted, my account was disabled for security reasons (official work email, not a single tweet, email verified) and the only way to unlock is by adding my number. I've been opening tickets for a week but they're all automatically closed. This gets me thinking, does it even matter if a SaaS product has a twitter handle for marketing and support?
- adevx 7y ago
  This seems to be default practice now. I also found this to be the case for Outlook accounts. After initial registration they block your account, or in the case of Outlook, disable outgoing email.
- inapis 7y ago
  Twitter reopened my service’s account after two months when I refused to hand over my mobile number. Pretty much every single service immediately bans me upon account creation if I don’t hand over my mobile number. Instagram banned me for “violating terms of service” before I had even chosen a username - before I had posted even a single thing. Makes me wonder if signing up for a service was in their list of violations itself? I mean, c’mon. It’s pretty much a ploy to gather mobile numbers under the garb of security or spam.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    It's annoying, but what other accessible solutions are there to avoid mass creation of "fake" accounts?
    - rgrs 7y ago
      Then let these companies guarantee that its one-time request and it will not be used for pushing anything else.
      - RandomBacon 7y ago
        Just like FB promised phone numbers were only going to be used for 2FA? https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2019/03/05/facebook-criticised-for-misuse-of-phone-numbers-provided-for-security/ https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2019/03/05/facebook-critici...
      - marssaxman 7y ago
        What guarantee could they possibly offer which we would believe? Of course they will exploit any information they can convince us to hand over.
    - hqrlk 7y ago
      What is a "fake" account? One without a real name? The extra ones, when a person decides to create more than one?
      - mFixman 7y ago
        Spam accounts.
    - r_singh 7y ago
      I get it, it's super easy to create Twitter bots and spread disinformation, etc. However, that's a problem with social media that we're discovering now (after a decade and a half or so) and the companies need to think about it, not just implement a solution that compromises user privacy because they have leverage. These cos. copyright all user created information. So they want to make money from it and want credit for good content. However, want to reduce liabilities that arise from content created by malicious actors. Can't have the cake and eat it too.
      - raxxorrax 7y ago
        Previously users were just anonymous with all consequences that entailed. But even today I don't really think the spreading of disinformation is a large problem and users just do that themselves often enough. Information you get today is probably still more accurate compared to times where every info was distributed through news papers.
        r_singh 7y ago
        You’re right in a way. However, newspapers have to have all stakeholders in on it: politicians, big businesses (aka advertisers), readers (trust factor) and their own reputation (journalists, etc). With bots, you can really be a nuisance with a little bit of effort.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - zelly 7y ago
      Micropayments. $5 bucks to create an account, non-refundable (Bitcoin accepted). Or you can provide your phone number, your choice.
      - levythe 7y ago
        $5 is not micro. 5¢ is.
  - miohtama 7y ago
    Here is an old study of effectiveness of phone number verification: http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en/us/pubs/archive/43134.pdf http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.co... TL;DR it is effective. Privacy and preventing misinformation bot armies are not conflicting goals, but unfortunately implementations achieving one hurts the other. Only way to prevent fake accounts is to have some kind of proxy for real identity confirmation. Unfortunately a phone number verification is currently only such global scalable method. Most likely you used an VPN IP address, privacy plugins or similar for the sign up that were flagged before as the source of problems.
    - alxlaz 7y ago
      It's not just about privacy -- you're one data breach away from having your phone number leaked to a bunch of shady gangsters who, for bonus points, can also read through the Twitter posts from the account associated with it. Pulling off a social engineering attack by phone is a hell of a lot easier than by email, which a lot of people, including non-technical people, treat somewhat more defensively. I wouldn't mind sharing my phone number if it were for my protection, but it's not -- it's a risk for me, and they ask me to do it for their platform's protection. More specifically, for the protection of that platform's profits. I honestly don't mind bots, it's advertisers and politicians who do, and they're the ones keeping the whole thing profitable.
      - miohtama 7y ago
        As a counterpoint, I'd rather have everyone to have a forced phone number verification to mitigate the negative effects of the social network. We could quarantine privacy sensitive users, with all trolls and bots, to some darknet privacy discussion boards and something like Mastodon. I'd rather sacrifice the privacy for the general good experience of my Twitter service.
        alxlaz 7y ago
        Previous experience with the Internet shows that all this would achieve would be a boom in the Temporary Phone Numbers as a Service (TPNaaS) market, so that trolls, bots and cybercriminals could get validated as easily as my grandma, while getting all those pesky privacy advocates out of the way. Edit: plus, I'm not sure how that invalidates my concern. The only thing better than a data leak with personal information is a data leak with personal information that's definitely true, up-to-date and complete -- and the only datapoints of dubious values belong to bots, making them easy to cross off your list.
  - deogeo 7y ago
    It would be nice if they were up-front about it, asking for e-mail and phone upon creation, instead of intentionally misleading users an e-mail is all they need.
    - teddyuk 7y ago
      Twotter asked for my phone for “security” then started texting things like it was someone’s birthday so I quickly removed it. Never again twattrr
  - Hitton 7y ago
    Especially when they have such spotless record of using phone numbers only for legitimate needs[0] recently. [0]: https://www.techworm.net/2019/10/phone-numbers-email-address.html https://www.techworm.net/2019/10/phone-numbers-email-address...
  - raxxorrax 7y ago
    The same happened with my Microsoft account (no work/enterprise account). It was locked, allegedly violating terms and services. I did absolutely nothing with this account. Besides maybe using a gmail account to register, I don't really understand the reason for the block and no details were provided of course. Since then I tried to delete the account, but on any attempts to do so MS tries to get my phone number, which I don't want to provide. Their support is completely inexistent, because you would need to log in of course. I would like to send them a cease and desists letter against blocking account deletion attempts. I am not sure, but I believe their conduct to be illegal in the EU where I am located. Probably would just cost me money, but they would deserve it.
    - pferde 7y ago
      Yep, I've had that happen with a private outlook.com account last month. I literally just created the account and used it just once, to register for an Azure certification exam. I sent no e-mails from that account, I just checked it twice or thrice for incoming exam information emails, until suddenly I could not log in because of ToS violations. Stay classy, Microsoft!
  - zelly 7y ago
    It's legitimately to stop spam. Captchas can be gamed or purchased. IPv6 makes banning IPs futile. Getting a SIM card is the only thing that bots cannot do. The only other alternative to stop spam is micropayments (at a similar cost to a SIM card). I would actually like to see that as an option instead of providing my mobile number--preferably using Bitcoin because my credit card number is even more confidential than my phone number.
    - r_singh 7y ago
      If you really want to orchestrate some sort of spam attack with bots. You can just purchase a hundred numbers on twilio or bandwidth and just automate the who OTP process with Puppeteer. If it’s important enough. You’re right about it being a lot more annoying though.
      - skinnymuch 7y ago
        The service has to just not allow VoIP numbers like Twilio. A handful are already like that. Like Craigslist as last example I came across.
      - zelly 7y ago
        Twillio and Google Voice numbers do not work for phone verification on Twitter/Facebook/Google properties. VoIP phone numbers are sold in blocks and well-known to companies who subscribe to those lists (basically all social media). Twilio numbers do work for the scrappier sites though.
    - Dylan16807 7y ago
      > IPv6 makes banning IPs futile. For wired connections, isn't banning the customer-sized subnet about the same in terms of effectiveness ?
    - freeflight 7y ago
      It's legitimately to stop spam. That might be what it originally started out as, but by now many platforms seem to think of it as just more personal data they can monetize [0] [1]. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/08/twitter-admits-it-used-two-factor-phone-numbers-and-emails-for-targeted-advertising/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/08/twitter-admits-it-used-two... [1] https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/28/facebook-two-factor-phone-numbers-ads/ https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/28/facebook-two-factor-phon...
  - about_help 7y ago
    Just part of the panopticon, they are forcing you to make it super easy for governments to monitor you. Tracking email addresses and correlating amongst shared names makes for more false negatives, tie it to a phone number and you're doing their work for them.
  - newscracker 7y ago
    Anyone working on Instagram should read this. I’d created an Instagram account to try it out. I posted a few posts (like infographics, I wasn’t going to give real photos to Facebook) and didn’t continue later. After some months I found I couldn’t login and that my account was disabled for “violating terms”. There was nothing in that account that violated any terms — no spam, no hate speech, no nudity, no spamming others for likes or followers. The only thing that stood out was that I mostly used a web browser to post and sometimes shared a photo to the app instead of giving the app access to all my photos. The account continued to work for quite sometime after I stopped posting and interacting. I tried to appeal, but it wanted a real photo of me holding some handwritten information. No thanks, I don’t really need an abusive and flakey platform to have my real photo. I abandoned Instagram then. It’s one of the most needlessly aggressive platforms that deactivates accounts for no good reason and bullies people into giving their photo and/or phone number. I hope Instagram dies quickly because of this stupid aggressiveness. More people should start using decentralized platforms where one may have a better chance of expressing oneself (I’m talking about regular, non-spam speech). All these centralized platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are big time bullies.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- lonelappde 7y ago
  It certainly doesn't matter. You can use any account and public search to search for references to your product. You can offer support on uservoice, forums, email. Twitter support is only needed for companies like Comcast that refuse to offer regular support but need to respond to the hurricane of hatred from sub-consensual users. Using needing twitter is a symptom of deeper problems.
- riffic 7y ago
  >does it even matter if a SaaS product has a twitter handle for marketing and support? With ActivityPub, the organization behind your SaaS product can be hosting their own organizational instance of Mastodon (or whatever fediverse software they choose to run) and interact directly on the platform, bypassing Twitter. Effectively this is a lot like hosting your own SMTP services (or paying someone to do that for you!)
alecco 7y ago
An article with only anecdotes on a country of 1bn people... BBC is a shadow of it's former glory. Don't get me wrong, I'd love people moving from Twitter to Mastodon, but this article doesn't have any substance.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- tzjmetron 7y ago
  A lot of influential (Indian) people I follow on Twitter are indeed moving onto Mastodon (with stop-gap measures like apps to cross-post "toots" to Twitter during the transition). It is being done as a form of protest against @TwitterIndia in particular, who seem to be willy-nilly closing down valid accounts of "liberals" whilst protecting the accounts of people who openly call for ethnic cleansing, massacres, riots, lynching, and carrying out active propaganda against minorities - primarily against Muslims and Christians, and to a smaller extent against Sikhs. It is a seminal move in my opinion, and unless Twitter wishes a huge chunk of its sane demographic to move out completely, it had better start paying more attention to people's concerns.
bernardlunn 7y ago
Clickait headline without much substance
- smitty1e 7y ago
  I've looked briefly at Mastadon, but hadn't been motivated to used it. However, as a Twitter user for the last decade, the platform seems to be decaying. Either no on is really on it much any longer, or they've squelched my account severely. The fun seemed to depart after late 2016, as though something happened which dismayed The Powers That Be.
  - reitoei 7y ago
    Twitter's problem is that it won't do anything about users with handles like @magapatriot2130945785 who have turned the site into trash. It's not that they CAN'T do anything about it, the problem is that they WON'T.
    - viridian 7y ago
      Why do think that users with usernames like that have turned the site into trash? In my experience, Twitteer's problems seem more systematic, and related to their attempts to maximize your time on site, and thus ads viewed.
      - reitoei 7y ago
        Have you actually used Twitter since 2016?
    - Mirioron 7y ago
      Isn't Twitter much more heavily slanted towards left-wing politics? Twitter has pretty much become a haven for that. I really don't see why you would think that the group you mentioned are the ones that ruined Twitter. Incidentally, Reddit seems to be going the same way, but they probably have more niche communities that are isolated from the rest of the site, so it might not become as big of an issue.
kburman 7y ago
BBC always there to pick up any anti-India topic. It amazes me every time. Source: I read the news on daily basis from various sources to avoid bias media. EDIT: I'm not on any political party side. Actually have voted for NOTA.
- r_singh 7y ago
  I did read the article. How's it anti-India? I sympathise with Twitter. India is number 1 on the list of countries that request for information on social media users and also in requesting censorship.
  - sbmthakur 7y ago
    > I sympathise with Twitter. India is number 1 on the list of countries that request for information on social media users and also in requesting censorship. And they have a good reason for that. This is from the article: The report said most of the blocked content was critical of the government's recent move to strip Indian-administered Kashmir of its semi-autonomous status, and were made after requests by the government itself. There was a massive misinformation campaign against India on Twitter in the aftermath of abrogating article 370. Many of these tweets originated from Pakistani handles[1][2]. They have even started impersonating top Indian military officials on Twitter[3]. And it seems that they are not just stopping with Kashmir. The propaganda campaign even covers Rafale and Tamil Nadu[4][5]. I agree with you that the article isn't particularly anti-India. However, the article should've provided some more context considering that a lot of BBC readers are from the West. 1. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/crpf-j-k-police-kashmir-1580061-2019-08-12 https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/crpf-j-k-police-kashmi... 2. https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/a-third-of-misleading-posts-about-kashmir-come-from-pakistan-say-indian-fact-checkers/ https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/a-third-of-mislea... 3. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/pakistan-s-fake-news-plot-busted-twitter-suspends-50-bogus-handles-for-top-army-officials-1600194-2019-09-17 https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/pakistan-s-fake-news-p... 4. https://www.news18.com/news/india/as-rafale-adds-to-firepower-on-iaf-day-pak-uses-bot-armies-to-make-runawayforce_iaf-trend-on-indian-twitter-2338295.html https://www.news18.com/news/india/as-rafale-adds-to-firepowe... 5. https://qz.com/india/1727752/pakistan-bots-helped-gobackmodi-during-xi-jinpings-india-visit/ https://qz.com/india/1727752/pakistan-bots-helped-gobackmodi...
sbmthakur 7y ago
The article talks about the Indian government requesting Twitter to ban accounts in the context of Kashmir: The report said most of the blocked content was critical of the government's recent move to strip Indian-administered Kashmir of its semi-autonomous status, and were made after requests by the government itself. I believe that they've missed an important detail here. There was a massive misinformation campaign against India on Twitter in the aftermath of abrogating article 370. Many of these tweets originated from Pakistani handles[1][2]. They have even started impersonating top Indian military officials on Twitter[3]. And it seems that they are not just stopping with Kashmir. The propaganda campaign even covers Rafale and Tamil Nadu[4][5]. I do not condone banning accounts that are critical of the Government. However, propaganda over sensitive topics should be stopped by all means. 1. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/crpf-j-k-police-kashmir-1580061-2019-08-12 https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/crpf-j-k-police-kashmi... 2. https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/a-third-of-misleading-posts-about-kashmir-come-from-pakistan-say-indian-fact-checkers/ https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/a-third-of-mislea... 3. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/pakistan-s-fake-news-plot-busted-twitter-suspends-50-bogus-handles-for-top-army-officials-1600194-2019-09-17 https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/pakistan-s-fake-news-p... 4. https://www.news18.com/news/india/as-rafale-adds-to-firepower-on-iaf-day-pak-uses-bot-armies-to-make-runawayforce_iaf-trend-on-indian-twitter-2338295.html https://www.news18.com/news/india/as-rafale-adds-to-firepowe... 5. https://qz.com/india/1727752/pakistan-bots-helped-gobackmodi-during-xi-jinpings-india-visit/ https://qz.com/india/1727752/pakistan-bots-helped-gobackmodi...
- rgrs 7y ago
  Exactly! If Twitter banned Russian influencers of US elections, BBC wont be reporting it. BBC's articles are shallow and not "investigative" as it used to be.
  - seanhunter 7y ago
    This example would seem to directly contradict your statement https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41766991 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41766991 "Twitter bans RT and Sputnik ads amid election interference fears"
fareesh 7y ago
Over the past couple of days there have been trending hashtags here in India accusing Twitter of caste and religious discrimination. I guess the irony is lost on these conspiracy pushing folks that Twitter censored their other hashtag but allowed this one to trend. There have also been conspiracy theories that Twitter is purposely not verifying some people because of their caste. I suspect that may be playing some role in this as well.
cobbzilla 7y ago
Tools like [1] [2] [3] make it easy to mirror your Mastodon posts to Twitter. This can smooth the transition for your audience that’s not ready to move yet. [1] https://crossposter.masto.donte.com.br/ https://crossposter.masto.donte.com.br/ [2] https://github.com/renatolond/mastodon-twitter-poster https://github.com/renatolond/mastodon-twitter-poster [3] https://github.com/bitkeks/mastodon-to-twitter https://github.com/bitkeks/mastodon-to-twitter
hqrlk 7y ago
>Some Indian Twitter users are leaving for Mastodon HAHAHAHAHA I haven't laughed this hard in days. "some" which could be 1, 2, 1000, 1 billion.
whywhywhywhy 7y ago
Unless you actually delete your Twitter account you're still complicit in Twitter. Twitter only has clout because of the people who hold accounts there that make it appear like it's more than a glorified internet forum.
chris_wot 7y ago
I made a parody account of Trump (everyone was doing it, it's passe now) and then I had my main account suspended. I was willing to give us the Trump account, but it turns out there is no way of telling Twitter this and when I asked for a review, they did absolutely nothing. Turns out, it was one of the best things Twitter every did for me. My life is way better without it. It's not actually sour grapes, after seeing what Twitter is doing and what people are using Twitter for - any good is definitely way outweighed by the bad of the platform.
abvishek 7y ago
Two Twitter one for left and other for Right all issues solved. Civil debate and agree to disagree is anyway lost
throwawayvxv 7y ago
I stumbled on Indian Twitter a few months ago, and discovered hate at a level and volume, I’ve seldom encountered in the internet. It’s probably a window into what’s happening on closed forums like WhatsApp, but it is profoundly disturbing. If the hate does progress into real-life violence, social media networks like Twitter and WhatsApp are going to face a grim accounting.
- Freak_NL 7y ago
  If? No, this is already reality. People in India got lynched because of rumours spread via WhatsApp¹. 1: https://www.cnet.com/news/whatsapp-rumors-reportedly-led-to-lynchings-in-india/ https://www.cnet.com/news/whatsapp-rumors-reportedly-led-to-...
lonelappde 7y ago
Headline is trivial/weasely. Some metrics would be interesting.
patrickaljord 7y ago
The issue I have with Mastodon is that a pod admin can prevent me from following people from other pods they don't like. I understand blocking whole spamming pods, but when they start blocking whole pods because they're too right wing or left wing, one might wonder what's the point of switching from Twitter? Now, you would say, I could run my own pod, but they could still block me from following anyone on their pods just because of the people I'm following or because they have white lists of pods allowed to follow people. This makes the whole experience even more restricting than twitter and creates insular bubbles of opinions where you are only allowed to follow people you already agree with (boring). I guess, a truly decentralized solution would be something like a blockchain where they will not be able to prevent anyone from following anyone when using different clients. Haven't seen any working solution yet.
- cjslep 7y ago
  Are you looking to break your bubble, or other people's bubble? Your first paragraph is a complaint about the former and your second paragraph about the latter. I read this as goalpost shifting. Fundamentally, the freedom-of-speech argument of "everyone must read what I have to say" is a tired one that cannot and will not ever happen: You can't force everyone else to read your post. Not on a blockchain, not on a federated system. Blockchain may mean they have to download your content, but their client filter will always be available to never have to see another person's content even if force-downloaded. Clockwork Orange type solution is the only way to be sure a human puts their eyeballs on specific content. In general, most admins are not proactively blocking federated single instance users unless reports come in, in which case you probably did something to someone on that instance. Not everyone is there to burst their bubble, but craft it, and depending what they want, you or I might not make the cut. Oh well. Finally, if an anti-censorship platform where everyone must download one's speech (under certain conditions) is truly what you want, go to FreeNet. Even there, no one is required to read another's content.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    > what I have to say The entire post is about who they are allowed to follow, nothing to do with what they say. It's not about personal bubbles either. Can download, not must download.
jangid 7y ago
The BBC article itself is biased. Twitter has banned people from all sides. But BBC chose people only from one side. Example handles from other side: check this tweet (this is a pro govt handle) - https://twitter.com/modifiedvikas/status/1177099258534588416 https://twitter.com/modifiedvikas/status/1177099258534588416
- newyankee 7y ago
  Most popular banned handle from RW is probably TrueIndology, and undoubtedly the selective reporting has its own agenda as well
  - devnonymous 7y ago
    If Twitter has banned as many right wing accounts as left leaning ones, why is it that the majority of disgruntled responses to Twitter India's clarification thread are blaming Twitter India's right wing bias ? https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1192384055884447744 https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1192384055884447744 ...or is there a claim somewhere in here that the unhappy right wing accounts just leave twitter for Mastodon without complaining and hence all that anyone, including the BBC, seems to highlight is the left leaning accounts making a noise ? Where are the unhappy right wingers in that thread ?
    - newyankee 7y ago
      it is a coordinated trend which was orchestrated by the usual LW handles. This happens every day on twitter, LW or RW, bollywood celebrities or businesses, Baba Ram rahim singh or other godmans, every vested interest generates a coordinated hashtag and trends it. Also the RW twitter is not given the required exposure by media outlets in India (forget about the Western outlets) when they have their protests as well. This happens with many cases - e.g. Happened after killing of Kamlesh Tiwari. Many people celebrated the murder and were rightly condemned by the RW twitter group but Indian media did not highlight that.
      - devnonymous 7y ago
devnonymous 7y ago
For context, some high profile activist / journalist accounts have been suspended of late. There's been a noticeable right-wing leaning enforcement of twitter policies in India. I think the trigger point was when Jay Shah's account[1] got a blue tick despite being a dormant account with a just 19 followers (at the time of being verified). Twitter India then issued a statement, which further had the Streisand effect: https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1192384055884447744 https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1192384055884447744 (heh, just noticed the ratio on that ! :)) [1] https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/with-zero-tweet19-followers-jay-shah-gets-blue-tick-verification-netizens-cries-foul-twitter-goes-silent https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/with-zero-tweet19-...
- sbmthakur 7y ago
  It's a bit more complicated than that. Twitter has been also banning right-wing leaning accounts as this comment mentioned. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21482041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21482041 Also, there's the fact that Twitter was summoned by a Parliamentary panel when someone accused them of curbing non-left leaning voices. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/twitter-india-summoned-by-parliament-panel-over-citizens-social-media-rights-1448893-2019-02-05 https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/twitter-india-summoned...
  - devnonymous 7y ago
    > It's a bit more complicated than that. I really don't think it is. The replies on that twitter thread I posted there, from a couple of days ago clearly indicates (or at least implies) that the people leaving the platform are most likely the people unhappy with Twitter India's right wing bias.
pknerd 7y ago
I'd say it's more of Twitter India issue than main Twitter. Twitter banned many Pakistani and Indians accounts without any notice who were raising voice against 3 months+ Kashmir lockdown against Modi govt.
- sbmthakur 7y ago
  What do you expect Twitter when most of them were spreading fake news? https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/crpf-j-k-police-kashmir-1580061-2019-08-12 https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/crpf-j-k-police-kashmi... https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/a-third-of-misleading-posts-about-kashmir-come-from-pakistan-say-indian-fact-checkers/ https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/a-third-of-mislea...
  - pknerd 7y ago
    Calm down, dude. You are doing over efforts to defend Modi regime on this forum. They are not going to pay more. And do not cite me Propaganda Indian media here. It does not matter to any other than Sanghis.
    - sbmthakur 7y ago
      > Calm down, dude. You are doing over efforts to defend Modi regime on this forum. They are not going to pay more. Thanks for the concern. But I'm very much calm. You made a factually incorrect post without backing up with any credible links. I'm not defending Modi regime here. It would be great if you could tell me how much do you get paid for peddling anti-Modi Propaganda here? > And do not cite me Propaganda Indian media here. It does not matter to any other than Sanghis. Sorry to inform you, but you do not speak for everyone here. Could you point out where did you find Propaganda media in my comment? Maybe it's your background that's forcing you to think whatever doesn't agree with you is Propaganda?
      - dang 7y ago
        Nationalistic flamewar will get you banned here. Please don't post like this to HN again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
alok99 7y ago
Anecdotally, it's not some. They are switching in droves to Mastodon. My local timeline on Mastodon for the past couple days has quite literally only been new users from India.
0xdead 7y ago
On the bright side, it will reduce the number of most obnoxious pricks on Twitter. Indian twitter army is one of the worst "communities" on internet.

130 points by johnx123-up 7y ago

I recently signed up on Twitter with a new account for a new project I'm working on. Like a few posts here (on HN) have highlighted, my account was disabled for security reasons (official work email, not a single tweet, email verified) and the only way to unlock is by adding my number. I've been opening tickets for a week but they're all automatically closed. This gets me thinking, does it even matter if a SaaS product has a twitter handle for marketing and support?

adevx 7y ago
This seems to be default practice now. I also found this to be the case for Outlook accounts. After initial registration they block your account, or in the case of Outlook, disable outgoing email.
inapis 7y ago
Twitter reopened my service’s account after two months when I refused to hand over my mobile number. Pretty much every single service immediately bans me upon account creation if I don’t hand over my mobile number. Instagram banned me for “violating terms of service” before I had even chosen a username - before I had posted even a single thing. Makes me wonder if signing up for a service was in their list of violations itself? I mean, c’mon. It’s pretty much a ploy to gather mobile numbers under the garb of security or spam.
- pjc50 7y ago
  It's annoying, but what other accessible solutions are there to avoid mass creation of "fake" accounts?
  - rgrs 7y ago
    Then let these companies guarantee that its one-time request and it will not be used for pushing anything else.
    - RandomBacon 7y ago
      Just like FB promised phone numbers were only going to be used for 2FA? https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2019/03/05/facebook-criticised-for-misuse-of-phone-numbers-provided-for-security/ https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2019/03/05/facebook-critici...
    - marssaxman 7y ago
      What guarantee could they possibly offer which we would believe? Of course they will exploit any information they can convince us to hand over.
  - hqrlk 7y ago
    What is a "fake" account? One without a real name? The extra ones, when a person decides to create more than one?
    - mFixman 7y ago
      Spam accounts.
  - r_singh 7y ago
    I get it, it's super easy to create Twitter bots and spread disinformation, etc. However, that's a problem with social media that we're discovering now (after a decade and a half or so) and the companies need to think about it, not just implement a solution that compromises user privacy because they have leverage. These cos. copyright all user created information. So they want to make money from it and want credit for good content. However, want to reduce liabilities that arise from content created by malicious actors. Can't have the cake and eat it too.
    - raxxorrax 7y ago
      Previously users were just anonymous with all consequences that entailed. But even today I don't really think the spreading of disinformation is a large problem and users just do that themselves often enough. Information you get today is probably still more accurate compared to times where every info was distributed through news papers.
      - r_singh 7y ago
        You’re right in a way. However, newspapers have to have all stakeholders in on it: politicians, big businesses (aka advertisers), readers (trust factor) and their own reputation (journalists, etc). With bots, you can really be a nuisance with a little bit of effort.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - zelly 7y ago
    Micropayments. $5 bucks to create an account, non-refundable (Bitcoin accepted). Or you can provide your phone number, your choice.
    - levythe 7y ago
      $5 is not micro. 5¢ is.
- miohtama 7y ago
  Here is an old study of effectiveness of phone number verification: http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en/us/pubs/archive/43134.pdf http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.co... TL;DR it is effective. Privacy and preventing misinformation bot armies are not conflicting goals, but unfortunately implementations achieving one hurts the other. Only way to prevent fake accounts is to have some kind of proxy for real identity confirmation. Unfortunately a phone number verification is currently only such global scalable method. Most likely you used an VPN IP address, privacy plugins or similar for the sign up that were flagged before as the source of problems.
  - alxlaz 7y ago
    It's not just about privacy -- you're one data breach away from having your phone number leaked to a bunch of shady gangsters who, for bonus points, can also read through the Twitter posts from the account associated with it. Pulling off a social engineering attack by phone is a hell of a lot easier than by email, which a lot of people, including non-technical people, treat somewhat more defensively. I wouldn't mind sharing my phone number if it were for my protection, but it's not -- it's a risk for me, and they ask me to do it for their platform's protection. More specifically, for the protection of that platform's profits. I honestly don't mind bots, it's advertisers and politicians who do, and they're the ones keeping the whole thing profitable.
    - miohtama 7y ago
      As a counterpoint, I'd rather have everyone to have a forced phone number verification to mitigate the negative effects of the social network. We could quarantine privacy sensitive users, with all trolls and bots, to some darknet privacy discussion boards and something like Mastodon. I'd rather sacrifice the privacy for the general good experience of my Twitter service.
      - alxlaz 7y ago
        Previous experience with the Internet shows that all this would achieve would be a boom in the Temporary Phone Numbers as a Service (TPNaaS) market, so that trolls, bots and cybercriminals could get validated as easily as my grandma, while getting all those pesky privacy advocates out of the way. Edit: plus, I'm not sure how that invalidates my concern. The only thing better than a data leak with personal information is a data leak with personal information that's definitely true, up-to-date and complete -- and the only datapoints of dubious values belong to bots, making them easy to cross off your list.
- deogeo 7y ago
  It would be nice if they were up-front about it, asking for e-mail and phone upon creation, instead of intentionally misleading users an e-mail is all they need.
  - teddyuk 7y ago
    Twotter asked for my phone for “security” then started texting things like it was someone’s birthday so I quickly removed it. Never again twattrr
- Hitton 7y ago
  Especially when they have such spotless record of using phone numbers only for legitimate needs[0] recently. [0]: https://www.techworm.net/2019/10/phone-numbers-email-address.html https://www.techworm.net/2019/10/phone-numbers-email-address...
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  The same happened with my Microsoft account (no work/enterprise account). It was locked, allegedly violating terms and services. I did absolutely nothing with this account. Besides maybe using a gmail account to register, I don't really understand the reason for the block and no details were provided of course. Since then I tried to delete the account, but on any attempts to do so MS tries to get my phone number, which I don't want to provide. Their support is completely inexistent, because you would need to log in of course. I would like to send them a cease and desists letter against blocking account deletion attempts. I am not sure, but I believe their conduct to be illegal in the EU where I am located. Probably would just cost me money, but they would deserve it.
  - pferde 7y ago
    Yep, I've had that happen with a private outlook.com account last month. I literally just created the account and used it just once, to register for an Azure certification exam. I sent no e-mails from that account, I just checked it twice or thrice for incoming exam information emails, until suddenly I could not log in because of ToS violations. Stay classy, Microsoft!
- zelly 7y ago
  It's legitimately to stop spam. Captchas can be gamed or purchased. IPv6 makes banning IPs futile. Getting a SIM card is the only thing that bots cannot do. The only other alternative to stop spam is micropayments (at a similar cost to a SIM card). I would actually like to see that as an option instead of providing my mobile number--preferably using Bitcoin because my credit card number is even more confidential than my phone number.
  - r_singh 7y ago
    If you really want to orchestrate some sort of spam attack with bots. You can just purchase a hundred numbers on twilio or bandwidth and just automate the who OTP process with Puppeteer. If it’s important enough. You’re right about it being a lot more annoying though.
    - skinnymuch 7y ago
      The service has to just not allow VoIP numbers like Twilio. A handful are already like that. Like Craigslist as last example I came across.
    - zelly 7y ago
      Twillio and Google Voice numbers do not work for phone verification on Twitter/Facebook/Google properties. VoIP phone numbers are sold in blocks and well-known to companies who subscribe to those lists (basically all social media). Twilio numbers do work for the scrappier sites though.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    > IPv6 makes banning IPs futile. For wired connections, isn't banning the customer-sized subnet about the same in terms of effectiveness ?
  - freeflight 7y ago
    It's legitimately to stop spam. That might be what it originally started out as, but by now many platforms seem to think of it as just more personal data they can monetize [0] [1]. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/08/twitter-admits-it-used-two-factor-phone-numbers-and-emails-for-targeted-advertising/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/08/twitter-admits-it-used-two... [1] https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/28/facebook-two-factor-phone-numbers-ads/ https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/28/facebook-two-factor-phon...
- about_help 7y ago
  Just part of the panopticon, they are forcing you to make it super easy for governments to monitor you. Tracking email addresses and correlating amongst shared names makes for more false negatives, tie it to a phone number and you're doing their work for them.
- newscracker 7y ago
  Anyone working on Instagram should read this. I’d created an Instagram account to try it out. I posted a few posts (like infographics, I wasn’t going to give real photos to Facebook) and didn’t continue later. After some months I found I couldn’t login and that my account was disabled for “violating terms”. There was nothing in that account that violated any terms — no spam, no hate speech, no nudity, no spamming others for likes or followers. The only thing that stood out was that I mostly used a web browser to post and sometimes shared a photo to the app instead of giving the app access to all my photos. The account continued to work for quite sometime after I stopped posting and interacting. I tried to appeal, but it wanted a real photo of me holding some handwritten information. No thanks, I don’t really need an abusive and flakey platform to have my real photo. I abandoned Instagram then. It’s one of the most needlessly aggressive platforms that deactivates accounts for no good reason and bullies people into giving their photo and/or phone number. I hope Instagram dies quickly because of this stupid aggressiveness. More people should start using decentralized platforms where one may have a better chance of expressing oneself (I’m talking about regular, non-spam speech). All these centralized platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are big time bullies.
deleted 7y ago
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lonelappde 7y ago
It certainly doesn't matter. You can use any account and public search to search for references to your product. You can offer support on uservoice, forums, email. Twitter support is only needed for companies like Comcast that refuse to offer regular support but need to respond to the hurricane of hatred from sub-consensual users. Using needing twitter is a symptom of deeper problems.
riffic 7y ago
>does it even matter if a SaaS product has a twitter handle for marketing and support? With ActivityPub, the organization behind your SaaS product can be hosting their own organizational instance of Mastodon (or whatever fediverse software they choose to run) and interact directly on the platform, bypassing Twitter. Effectively this is a lot like hosting your own SMTP services (or paying someone to do that for you!)

alecco 7y ago

An article with only anecdotes on a country of 1bn people... BBC is a shadow of it's former glory. Don't get me wrong, I'd love people moving from Twitter to Mastodon, but this article doesn't have any substance.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tzjmetron 7y ago
A lot of influential (Indian) people I follow on Twitter are indeed moving onto Mastodon (with stop-gap measures like apps to cross-post "toots" to Twitter during the transition). It is being done as a form of protest against @TwitterIndia in particular, who seem to be willy-nilly closing down valid accounts of "liberals" whilst protecting the accounts of people who openly call for ethnic cleansing, massacres, riots, lynching, and carrying out active propaganda against minorities - primarily against Muslims and Christians, and to a smaller extent against Sikhs. It is a seminal move in my opinion, and unless Twitter wishes a huge chunk of its sane demographic to move out completely, it had better start paying more attention to people's concerns.

bernardlunn 7y ago

Clickait headline without much substance

smitty1e 7y ago
I've looked briefly at Mastadon, but hadn't been motivated to used it. However, as a Twitter user for the last decade, the platform seems to be decaying. Either no on is really on it much any longer, or they've squelched my account severely. The fun seemed to depart after late 2016, as though something happened which dismayed The Powers That Be.
- reitoei 7y ago
  Twitter's problem is that it won't do anything about users with handles like @magapatriot2130945785 who have turned the site into trash. It's not that they CAN'T do anything about it, the problem is that they WON'T.
  - viridian 7y ago
    Why do think that users with usernames like that have turned the site into trash? In my experience, Twitteer's problems seem more systematic, and related to their attempts to maximize your time on site, and thus ads viewed.
    - reitoei 7y ago
      Have you actually used Twitter since 2016?
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    Isn't Twitter much more heavily slanted towards left-wing politics? Twitter has pretty much become a haven for that. I really don't see why you would think that the group you mentioned are the ones that ruined Twitter. Incidentally, Reddit seems to be going the same way, but they probably have more niche communities that are isolated from the rest of the site, so it might not become as big of an issue.

kburman 7y ago

BBC always there to pick up any anti-India topic. It amazes me every time. Source: I read the news on daily basis from various sources to avoid bias media. EDIT: I'm not on any political party side. Actually have voted for NOTA.

r_singh 7y ago
I did read the article. How's it anti-India? I sympathise with Twitter. India is number 1 on the list of countries that request for information on social media users and also in requesting censorship.
- sbmthakur 7y ago
  > I sympathise with Twitter. India is number 1 on the list of countries that request for information on social media users and also in requesting censorship. And they have a good reason for that. This is from the article: The report said most of the blocked content was critical of the government's recent move to strip Indian-administered Kashmir of its semi-autonomous status, and were made after requests by the government itself. There was a massive misinformation campaign against India on Twitter in the aftermath of abrogating article 370. Many of these tweets originated from Pakistani handles[1][2]. They have even started impersonating top Indian military officials on Twitter[3]. And it seems that they are not just stopping with Kashmir. The propaganda campaign even covers Rafale and Tamil Nadu[4][5]. I agree with you that the article isn't particularly anti-India. However, the article should've provided some more context considering that a lot of BBC readers are from the West. 1. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/crpf-j-k-police-kashmir-1580061-2019-08-12 https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/crpf-j-k-police-kashmi... 2. https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/a-third-of-misleading-posts-about-kashmir-come-from-pakistan-say-indian-fact-checkers/ https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/a-third-of-mislea... 3. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/pakistan-s-fake-news-plot-busted-twitter-suspends-50-bogus-handles-for-top-army-officials-1600194-2019-09-17 https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/pakistan-s-fake-news-p... 4. https://www.news18.com/news/india/as-rafale-adds-to-firepower-on-iaf-day-pak-uses-bot-armies-to-make-runawayforce_iaf-trend-on-indian-twitter-2338295.html https://www.news18.com/news/india/as-rafale-adds-to-firepowe... 5. https://qz.com/india/1727752/pakistan-bots-helped-gobackmodi-during-xi-jinpings-india-visit/ https://qz.com/india/1727752/pakistan-bots-helped-gobackmodi...

sbmthakur 7y ago

The article talks about the Indian government requesting Twitter to ban accounts in the context of Kashmir: The report said most of the blocked content was critical of the government's recent move to strip Indian-administered Kashmir of its semi-autonomous status, and were made after requests by the government itself. I believe that they've missed an important detail here. There was a massive misinformation campaign against India on Twitter in the aftermath of abrogating article 370. Many of these tweets originated from Pakistani handles[1][2]. They have even started impersonating top Indian military officials on Twitter[3]. And it seems that they are not just stopping with Kashmir. The propaganda campaign even covers Rafale and Tamil Nadu[4][5]. I do not condone banning accounts that are critical of the Government. However, propaganda over sensitive topics should be stopped by all means. 1. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/crpf-j-k-police-kashmir-1580061-2019-08-12 https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/crpf-j-k-police-kashmi... 2. https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/a-third-of-misleading-posts-about-kashmir-come-from-pakistan-say-indian-fact-checkers/ https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/a-third-of-mislea... 3. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/pakistan-s-fake-news-plot-busted-twitter-suspends-50-bogus-handles-for-top-army-officials-1600194-2019-09-17 https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/pakistan-s-fake-news-p... 4. https://www.news18.com/news/india/as-rafale-adds-to-firepower-on-iaf-day-pak-uses-bot-armies-to-make-runawayforce_iaf-trend-on-indian-twitter-2338295.html https://www.news18.com/news/india/as-rafale-adds-to-firepowe... 5. https://qz.com/india/1727752/pakistan-bots-helped-gobackmodi-during-xi-jinpings-india-visit/ https://qz.com/india/1727752/pakistan-bots-helped-gobackmodi...

rgrs 7y ago
Exactly! If Twitter banned Russian influencers of US elections, BBC wont be reporting it. BBC's articles are shallow and not "investigative" as it used to be.
- seanhunter 7y ago
  This example would seem to directly contradict your statement https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41766991 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41766991 "Twitter bans RT and Sputnik ads amid election interference fears"

fareesh 7y ago

Over the past couple of days there have been trending hashtags here in India accusing Twitter of caste and religious discrimination. I guess the irony is lost on these conspiracy pushing folks that Twitter censored their other hashtag but allowed this one to trend. There have also been conspiracy theories that Twitter is purposely not verifying some people because of their caste. I suspect that may be playing some role in this as well.

cobbzilla 7y ago

Tools like [1] [2] [3] make it easy to mirror your Mastodon posts to Twitter. This can smooth the transition for your audience that’s not ready to move yet. [1] https://crossposter.masto.donte.com.br/ https://crossposter.masto.donte.com.br/ [2] https://github.com/renatolond/mastodon-twitter-poster https://github.com/renatolond/mastodon-twitter-poster [3] https://github.com/bitkeks/mastodon-to-twitter https://github.com/bitkeks/mastodon-to-twitter

hqrlk 7y ago

>Some Indian Twitter users are leaving for Mastodon HAHAHAHAHA I haven't laughed this hard in days. "some" which could be 1, 2, 1000, 1 billion.

whywhywhywhy 7y ago

Unless you actually delete your Twitter account you're still complicit in Twitter. Twitter only has clout because of the people who hold accounts there that make it appear like it's more than a glorified internet forum.

chris_wot 7y ago

I made a parody account of Trump (everyone was doing it, it's passe now) and then I had my main account suspended. I was willing to give us the Trump account, but it turns out there is no way of telling Twitter this and when I asked for a review, they did absolutely nothing. Turns out, it was one of the best things Twitter every did for me. My life is way better without it. It's not actually sour grapes, after seeing what Twitter is doing and what people are using Twitter for - any good is definitely way outweighed by the bad of the platform.

abvishek 7y ago

Two Twitter one for left and other for Right all issues solved. Civil debate and agree to disagree is anyway lost

throwawayvxv 7y ago

I stumbled on Indian Twitter a few months ago, and discovered hate at a level and volume, I’ve seldom encountered in the internet. It’s probably a window into what’s happening on closed forums like WhatsApp, but it is profoundly disturbing. If the hate does progress into real-life violence, social media networks like Twitter and WhatsApp are going to face a grim accounting.

Freak_NL 7y ago
If? No, this is already reality. People in India got lynched because of rumours spread via WhatsApp¹. 1: https://www.cnet.com/news/whatsapp-rumors-reportedly-led-to-lynchings-in-india/ https://www.cnet.com/news/whatsapp-rumors-reportedly-led-to-...

lonelappde 7y ago

Headline is trivial/weasely. Some metrics would be interesting.

patrickaljord 7y ago

The issue I have with Mastodon is that a pod admin can prevent me from following people from other pods they don't like. I understand blocking whole spamming pods, but when they start blocking whole pods because they're too right wing or left wing, one might wonder what's the point of switching from Twitter? Now, you would say, I could run my own pod, but they could still block me from following anyone on their pods just because of the people I'm following or because they have white lists of pods allowed to follow people. This makes the whole experience even more restricting than twitter and creates insular bubbles of opinions where you are only allowed to follow people you already agree with (boring). I guess, a truly decentralized solution would be something like a blockchain where they will not be able to prevent anyone from following anyone when using different clients. Haven't seen any working solution yet.

cjslep 7y ago
Are you looking to break your bubble, or other people's bubble? Your first paragraph is a complaint about the former and your second paragraph about the latter. I read this as goalpost shifting. Fundamentally, the freedom-of-speech argument of "everyone must read what I have to say" is a tired one that cannot and will not ever happen: You can't force everyone else to read your post. Not on a blockchain, not on a federated system. Blockchain may mean they have to download your content, but their client filter will always be available to never have to see another person's content even if force-downloaded. Clockwork Orange type solution is the only way to be sure a human puts their eyeballs on specific content. In general, most admins are not proactively blocking federated single instance users unless reports come in, in which case you probably did something to someone on that instance. Not everyone is there to burst their bubble, but craft it, and depending what they want, you or I might not make the cut. Oh well. Finally, if an anti-censorship platform where everyone must download one's speech (under certain conditions) is truly what you want, go to FreeNet. Even there, no one is required to read another's content.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  > what I have to say The entire post is about who they are allowed to follow, nothing to do with what they say. It's not about personal bubbles either. Can download, not must download.

jangid 7y ago

The BBC article itself is biased. Twitter has banned people from all sides. But BBC chose people only from one side. Example handles from other side: check this tweet (this is a pro govt handle) - https://twitter.com/modifiedvikas/status/1177099258534588416 https://twitter.com/modifiedvikas/status/1177099258534588416

newyankee 7y ago
Most popular banned handle from RW is probably TrueIndology, and undoubtedly the selective reporting has its own agenda as well
- devnonymous 7y ago
  If Twitter has banned as many right wing accounts as left leaning ones, why is it that the majority of disgruntled responses to Twitter India's clarification thread are blaming Twitter India's right wing bias ? https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1192384055884447744 https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1192384055884447744 ...or is there a claim somewhere in here that the unhappy right wing accounts just leave twitter for Mastodon without complaining and hence all that anyone, including the BBC, seems to highlight is the left leaning accounts making a noise ? Where are the unhappy right wingers in that thread ?
  - newyankee 7y ago
    it is a coordinated trend which was orchestrated by the usual LW handles. This happens every day on twitter, LW or RW, bollywood celebrities or businesses, Baba Ram rahim singh or other godmans, every vested interest generates a coordinated hashtag and trends it. Also the RW twitter is not given the required exposure by media outlets in India (forget about the Western outlets) when they have their protests as well. This happens with many cases - e.g. Happened after killing of Kamlesh Tiwari. Many people celebrated the murder and were rightly condemned by the RW twitter group but Indian media did not highlight that.
    - devnonymous 7y ago

devnonymous 7y ago

For context, some high profile activist / journalist accounts have been suspended of late. There's been a noticeable right-wing leaning enforcement of twitter policies in India. I think the trigger point was when Jay Shah's account[1] got a blue tick despite being a dormant account with a just 19 followers (at the time of being verified). Twitter India then issued a statement, which further had the Streisand effect: https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1192384055884447744 https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1192384055884447744 (heh, just noticed the ratio on that ! :)) [1] https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/with-zero-tweet19-followers-jay-shah-gets-blue-tick-verification-netizens-cries-foul-twitter-goes-silent https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/with-zero-tweet19-...

sbmthakur 7y ago
It's a bit more complicated than that. Twitter has been also banning right-wing leaning accounts as this comment mentioned. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21482041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21482041 Also, there's the fact that Twitter was summoned by a Parliamentary panel when someone accused them of curbing non-left leaning voices. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/twitter-india-summoned-by-parliament-panel-over-citizens-social-media-rights-1448893-2019-02-05 https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/twitter-india-summoned...
- devnonymous 7y ago
  > It's a bit more complicated than that. I really don't think it is. The replies on that twitter thread I posted there, from a couple of days ago clearly indicates (or at least implies) that the people leaving the platform are most likely the people unhappy with Twitter India's right wing bias.

pknerd 7y ago

I'd say it's more of Twitter India issue than main Twitter. Twitter banned many Pakistani and Indians accounts without any notice who were raising voice against 3 months+ Kashmir lockdown against Modi govt.

sbmthakur 7y ago
What do you expect Twitter when most of them were spreading fake news? https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/crpf-j-k-police-kashmir-1580061-2019-08-12 https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/crpf-j-k-police-kashmi... https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/a-third-of-misleading-posts-about-kashmir-come-from-pakistan-say-indian-fact-checkers/ https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/a-third-of-mislea...
- pknerd 7y ago
  Calm down, dude. You are doing over efforts to defend Modi regime on this forum. They are not going to pay more. And do not cite me Propaganda Indian media here. It does not matter to any other than Sanghis.
  - sbmthakur 7y ago
    > Calm down, dude. You are doing over efforts to defend Modi regime on this forum. They are not going to pay more. Thanks for the concern. But I'm very much calm. You made a factually incorrect post without backing up with any credible links. I'm not defending Modi regime here. It would be great if you could tell me how much do you get paid for peddling anti-Modi Propaganda here? > And do not cite me Propaganda Indian media here. It does not matter to any other than Sanghis. Sorry to inform you, but you do not speak for everyone here. Could you point out where did you find Propaganda media in my comment? Maybe it's your background that's forcing you to think whatever doesn't agree with you is Propaganda?
    - dang 7y ago
      Nationalistic flamewar will get you banned here. Please don't post like this to HN again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

alok99 7y ago

Anecdotally, it's not some. They are switching in droves to Mastodon. My local timeline on Mastodon for the past couple days has quite literally only been new users from India.

0xdead 7y ago

On the bright side, it will reduce the number of most obnoxious pricks on Twitter. Indian twitter army is one of the worst "communities" on internet.