15 ms·

Twitter cut off the ability to read a tweet by fetching its URL with a HTTP GET

326 points by LyalinDotCom 6y ago

cyberCleve 6y ago
I guess this means a lot of malware/botnets that uses Twitter to communicate just broke today.
bArray 6y ago
> We've detected that JavaScript is disabled in this > browser. Please enable JavaScript or switch to a supported > browser to continue using twitter.com. You can see a list > of supported browsers in our Help Center. So long then, Twitter. Consider for a minute the number of services/programs that just got screwed, the number of people on slow internet connections they just cut off, the number of people on low-end mobile devices that just lost access to local community discussions - the list goes on. Was it really so much to ask for a basic HTML interface to display text and images? In terms of resources, surely this is quite easy to support? I've been using mbasic.facebook.com without JS for years, for example. Sure, some features are screwed, but for the most part it works.
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  I've been using nitter.net to read tweets without javascript. I just append everything after the twitter.com domain name to https://nitter.net https://nitter.net to read the tweet in question. For example, the tweet this HN post links to could be read without javascript here: https://nitter.net/zarfeblong/status/1339742840142872577 https://nitter.net/zarfeblong/status/1339742840142872577
  - politelemon 6y ago
    I'm using the privacy redirect extension which does this for all twitter links. It has equivalents for Instagram, maps and reddit too
    - fretn 6y ago
      Does somebody know if something exists for safari on macos ? Or is this with the new web extension framework still not possible ?
  - CyberRabbi 6y ago
    I also use nitter for the that reason. I was under the impression that nitter screen scrapes so it’s interesting that it’s still working unchanged.
  - segfaultbuserr 6y ago
    +1 for nitter.net. In recent years, Twitter started to block public proxies and Tor aggressively, if an IP address is rate-limited, all accesses are denied. Worse, because of JavaScript, it only denies access after the script has given up after spending 60 seconds. And even when I'm not blocked, the script is still slow, and if you accidentally refreshed the page while in the middle of an endless scrolling, you'll have to try again. Nitter.net solves all the problems at once. I don't use Twitter but I do maintain a list of people in tech, which I check from time to time.
    - ryukafalz 6y ago
      You don't even have to be using Tor to get blocked like this; I get rate limited fairly regularly just following Twitter links on my phone while on mobile data. I suspect it's because my carrier is doing CGNAT and I share an IP with several other users. Makes it annoying when someone links to Twitter as usually I'll have to sit there refreshing a few times before I can actually see it.
      - ollifi 6y ago
        I have no proof but I always assumed they do this to push phone users towards downloading the app.
        etc-hosts 6y ago
        I run into issues like this running the app on my mobile.
  - DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
    nitter is really the way I want to consume tweets (I'm not even on twitter but have my bookmarks to existing topics e.g. twitter lists and users that I tune into still - users that I used to follow when there - I used to follow hundreds but those that keep me coming back aren't more than 5). twitter without an account is twitter without the noise or risk of getting sucked into "contributing" (e.g. riling myself up lol) Sadly, when you submit links from nitter to HN they get automatically demoted (they won't even have a discuss link and will never see the frontpage). I don't know the reasoning but I guess the argument could be that - it violates original content rule (that official sources must be used). - some engineering just went into HN to show the user-name part of twitter posts in submitted links. (I took that as a reasoning why HN prefers twitter links rather than nitter - suppose that could easily be expanded though). - potential legal reasons (? I can't think of any but maybe HN respects the claim of twitter that the data belongs to them etc ...) just speculation but fact is there is no nitter support on HN.
  - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
    By Jove, is this interface snappier and more convenient.
  - dastx 6y ago
    TIL! This is great. Thanks for posting.
  - solstice 6y ago
    There are a bunch of different instances running the nitter software too, so please consider choosing another one to avoid hugging nitter.net too much. Here's the list: https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Instances https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Instances
  - secondcoming 6y ago
    That's not fair. Someone put a lot of time and effort into that spinning wheel animation. By removing the need for JS the tweet now loads too quickly for it to be seen!
  - 0-_-0 6y ago
    You can use this [0] browser plugin to automatically redirect to Nitter. You can also choose which instance to redirect to, or to choose an instance randomly every time (for load balancing). Also supports: YouTube -> Invidio.us Instagram -> Bibliogram Google Maps -> OpenStreetMap reddit.com -> old.reddit.com or i.reddit.com [0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/privacy-redirect/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/privacy-redir...
    - est31 6y ago
      For reddit, there's also teddit: https://teddit.net/ https://teddit.net/
    - justaj 6y ago
      AFAIK the extension HTTPS Everywhere can do this too, but its UI for doing this is kind of haphazard.
    - Shared404 6y ago
      > Invidio.us This domain is dead, I currently am using invidious.xyz
      - 0-_-0 6y ago
        The plugin lets you choose between 12 alternatives, or choose randomly every time.
    - nicbou 6y ago
      Open Street Map is not a replacement for Google Maps. Not even close. It's a different product with overlapping features. As a detailed map, it's vastly superior. As a way to find locations and information about them, it's not nearly as good.
  - krebs_liebhaber 6y ago
    My favorite part of nitter.net is the RSS feeds. Stick them in your reader of choice, refresh them with an hourly cron job, and you can keep up with all your favorite twatterers with no need for an account.
  - JeremyNT 6y ago
    I love Nitter, but I can't help but feel like it's on borrowed time. Eventually Twitter is going to decide it's a problem. The day Nitter is killed is likely the day I stop using Twitter. Yes, I know you can host your own, but if Twitter decides to actively fight against it the best case scenario is an annoying cat and mouse game that makes the service unreliable.
- RyanGoosling 6y ago
  Can you use chromium cli? https://www.npmjs.com/package/puppeteer https://www.npmjs.com/package/puppeteer
  - GoblinSlayer 6y ago
    I remember there was a tui python client for a number of such sites like reddit and stuff.
  - nothasan 6y ago
    I don’t think this would really count as CLI, you still load up a full browser.
- jakub_g 6y ago
  BTW messenger over mbasic.facebook.com stopped working for me last week and throws errors. Am I the only one? The only web way to use FB messages for me now is the bloated desktop web experience (which takes 10s+ to load)
  - bArray 6y ago
    mbasic.facebook.com still works perfectly fine for me.
    - jakub_g 6y ago
      The website continues to work, but when you go to "Messages" tab, it shows an error.
      - bArray 6y ago
        Not for me? Seems to work as per normal in my case. I can't tell you exactly why that is though.
        jakub_g 6y ago
        Are you based in EU or outside? Perhaps it's an EU-only bug/feature after latest changes to be compliant with EU privacy rules.
        bArray 6y ago
        I'm currently based outside the EU and US, perhaps it is as you say. I'm not entirely sure why the privacy rules would change so drastically on a HTML based page though...
  - tonoto 6y ago
    You are not the only one. I've used other browsers on my android to use facebook over m.facebook.com, but about a week ago Facebook Messenger messages was disabled with an error message and also the alternative mbasic.facebook.com was crippled for me. So anyone messaging me have to wait until I'm at home. Their ordinary web experience since the latest(?) change of UI is horrible, notifications takes forever to render forcing a full page refresh to get back working.
- numpad0 6y ago
  > Was it really so much to ask for a basic HTML interface to display text and images? Yes; it allows automated mass aggregation of hard, accurate, and current information, which is not only non-ideal from profit perspective but also for maintaining community active and/or engaging
- giancarlostoro 6y ago
  Guess its time for me to uninstall the app. That is entirely detestable behavior in my eyes. If you want me to use your products dont cripple them.
- chadlavi 6y ago
  Twitter doesn't make any money off those people.
Tipewryter 6y ago
Thought experiment: How hard would it be to write a centralized 1-to-many message pipe that replicates Twitters core functionality? How hard would it be to run such a thing? The moral and legal needs to censor content would probably be a bigger task then the technical implementation?
- sdan 6y ago
  In the recent past, I've seen Twitter harshly ban account I randomly make. Sometimes its weeks before they ask for a phone number and if you don't have a real number (iirc they check against VoIP) they won't unrestrict you. If you have the same IP as other account I think they also might auto restrict you.
  - hertzrat 6y ago
    They banned my account for unnamed terms of use violations after my first post saying “well, I finally made a Twitter account.” Their support replied with “queries will not be responded to.” It was for the best
  - encom 6y ago
    Several years ago I tried to make a Twitter account. It got banned before I posted anything. I hadn't even subscribed to any users. I was going through the settings, and then \bam\, banned for being a bot, or some such nonsense. Nothing of value was lost.
    - 5560675260 6y ago
      Twitter aggressively tries to get phone numbers from new users - providing it is the main way to get unbanned in cases like this.
      - encom 6y ago
        Unless you're my mother, or maybe if you're part of my immediate family, you're not getting my phone number. American giant corporation with questionable ethics: hard no.
mellosouls 6y ago
Where is the evidence/documentation for this claim; ie that it's a general policy? I'm not disputing it but its just a tweet that doesn't provide context.
- klodolph 6y ago
  Here is how you verify it yourself, curl https://twitter.com/zarfeblong/status/1339742840142872577
  - ALittleLight 6y ago
    Still possible to curl, just looks like it is a bit more obnoxious now and requires parameters like your browserAgent and cookie to be set. Look in your network tab for requests to an endpoint like this[1] with a lot of query parameters after. 1- https://twitter.com/i/api/2/timeline/conversation/<twitter https://twitter.com/i/api/2/timeline/conversation/<twitter status id>.json
    - ignoranceprior 6y ago
      Any HTTP request you can make with a browser can in principle be made with curl. The issue is that seeing content now requires you to jump through lots of hoops, whereas it was previously openly accessible by default.
      - ALittleLight 6y ago
        That's true. I agree it is a worse change and obnoxious for twitter to do (unless there is some easy way I/we just aren't aware of that lets you easily get the tweets as before).
  - voltagex_ 6y ago
    As pointed out by https://twitter.com/magusnn/status/1339833122456662017 https://twitter.com/magusnn/status/1339833122456662017, you can impersonate GoogleBot and get an eye-watering 500kb of HTML to read a single tweet.
ffpip 6y ago
Twitter previously didn't serve up a preview with mobile.twitter.com links. I noticed it in Whatsapp, so not sure whether it's twitter's fault or Whatsapp's fault. Changing mobile.twitter.com to twitter.com enabled the tweet preview.
- jtsiskin 6y ago
  “We found site visitation increased 1% after removing the preview, ship it”
  - Spivak 6y ago
    I mean for any network with that many users if you can get a 1% increase for any single change that's pretty impressive. I mean Google has invented whole protocols and formats to save small percentages of traffic.
zarfeblong 6y ago
Thanks for the nitter.net pointer -- I wasn't aware of that. That will be helpful. I know (in principle) how to use curl to send an authenticated API request via HTTP. That's authenticated; you have to log in. I already have a twitter client for that use case. There's also unauthenticated API access (read-only public tweets only, as you'd expect). (I assume this is what nitter.net is doing.) Less tracking, but you still have to request an API key, so it is under Twitter's control and they could in theory cut it off. It's still not supporting the basic web principle of "you can GET the flippin' data". Anyhow, I'm glad this is getting some public attention. I'm a little surprised that I was the first one to make a fuss about it.
- RyanGoosling 6y ago
  Chromium cli? https://www.npmjs.com/package/puppeteer https://www.npmjs.com/package/puppeteer
cblconfederate 6y ago
You cant even link to a tweet that is part of a thread , only to the top tweet. It takes effort to do such blunders
throwawaysea 6y ago
So what’s the alternative? Is there some easy scripting tool to automate a browser to login (?) and issue requests to read tweets? I’m not very clear on what exactly is blocked here and what the workarounds are.
- smartbit 6y ago
  maybe adding googlebot https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25464280#25465039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25464280#25465039
nullify88 6y ago
You can HTTP GET tweets again by changing your useragent to Googlebot. curl -A "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://google.com/bot.html http://google.com/bot.html)" "https://twitter.com/zarfeblong/status/1339742840142872577 https://twitter.com/zarfeblong/status/1339742840142872577" Peak SEO when users are faced with more friction than Googlebots and crawlers.
- neiman 6y ago
  In 2020, the only way for netzidents to do get what they naturally deserve is by hacking.
  - bzb6 6y ago
    How do you “naturally deserve” to access the contents of the Twitter website?
    - morsch 6y ago
      I agree, that's just cruel. No one deserves being subjected to Twitter.
    - devmor 6y ago
      Since it became a dissemination service for public officials. The moment it became illegal for the US President to block people on Twitter, it should have become illegal for Twitter to restrict access to information to the public, for the same reason.
  - cooper12 6y ago
    Setting your user agent would only be considered hacking by the same people who think the Internet is a series of pipes. The browsers themselves copy each other's user agents for interoperability, so it's far past the point that changing it to look like another agent would be considered devious.
    - nextaccountic 6y ago
herbst 6y ago
Twitter once enflamed my enthusiasm for API programming. Today i can barely make an account without getting blocked. Its sad how it changed
- trident5000 6y ago
  They have a bot issue thats currently out of control.
- syshum 6y ago
  This is a reoccuring pattern Startup = Good Open API Middle = Start Closing API for "Quality, Security and Privacy" Large = Block all access to API unless you are another Big corporation... Every platform has gone through this life cycle, it is predictable at this point Edit: And dont for get the new excuse "bots are everywhere" the go to red herring to justify anti-user anti-consumer actions on 2020
rhn_mk1 6y ago
I'm surprised this has been noticed now. This has been happening to me with Firefox on and off for about a year, until I decided to switch to nitter.
X-Istence 6y ago
This is an issue I've noticed too... when I open a new tab (in the background) to Twitter, then Safari won't execute the javascript until I go to the tab and hit refresh. It sucks, because it adds a new refresh cycle just to see the tweet.
- jakub_g 6y ago
  I don't use Safari but there are possibly 3 issues behind this: - Twitter having a broken service worker (saw this a lot on Twitter discussions in last weeks) - Safari perhaps lowering the JS execution priority in background tabs - Twitter trying to be nice and only exec JS while their page is in foreground, and hitting a bug in Safari regarding visibilitychange callback not firing (which is fixed in Safari 14 by the way)
  - X-Istence 6y ago
    I'm running Safari 14.0.2 on Mac OS 11.1. Safari does lower background javascript execution, it allows it to save on battery life for background tabs. I want this. I want it to save battery life. So Twitter should make sure their javascript executes correctly when it is foregrounded and Safari does start executing it. Either way, I honestly don't care too much why it is broken, Twitter could have sent a pre-rendered page down.
  - dspillett 6y ago
    > Twitter having a broken service worker (saw this a lot on Twitter discussions in last weeks) Any references/links for that sort of breakage? I'm looking at using service workers for a personal project (mainly of offlining, but partly for background processing). Being throttled in a background tab is fine, but I'd like it to work fully without manual interaction (a refresh) once the tab has focus.
    - jakub_g 6y ago
      I don't know the details unfortunately, other than "force-reload fixes the issue".
bonoboTP 6y ago
I also got blocked a few hours after registering and had to give my phone number to get unblocked. I did nothing suspicious: filled out my profile in a normal way with nothing political and followed a few researchers but nothing en masse. I wrote to support to ask why this is, but no reply of course. I still gave it because I'm a little guy and want to get the benefits of being tapped into my professional community, to know what's up, to be visible myself etc. Such individual decisions result in this. We users have a hard time coordinating as we have individual incentives while Twitter is one entity and can do whatever it decides.
- baud147258 6y ago
  I'm pretty sure asking for the phone number is standard
  - bonoboTP 6y ago
    But then why not ask for it when registering? Well, of course to decrease friction and avoid turning people away at the entrance. You get smacked in the face with the request for your phone, once you've followed some interesting people, interacted with the site a bit and will form some attachment. Then you are more likely to enter your phone to keep using it. There's a psychological effect of feeling more strongly about retaining a given amount of already owned value compared to gaining an equivalent amount of stuff you don't have yet. You wouldn't pay with your phone number to get a Twitter account, but you would pay with it to keep an account you already have and started using. Dark patterns.
  - apricot 6y ago
    I'll tell them mine if they tell me theirs.
- nebalee 6y ago
  I had the same happening, created an account and it was locked the same day only to be unlocked when I provide a phone number. I wrote them an email telling them I refuse to give them my number for privacy reasons and they unlocked my account the next day.
BlueTemplar 6y ago
Hmm, so I guess that Twitter just feels big enough to just leave the World Wide Web?
dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
So they joined the ranks of websites that can't be used without JS. Websites that basically just display text. This is breaking the web happening right in front of us.
shakow 6y ago
Speaking of Twitter UI, am I the only one having to hard refresh every other Twitter page to get rid of the “This is not available for you” message?
- oarfish 6y ago
  No, I as well always use uMatrix's reload with cache bypass to circumvent the block.
- k_ 6y ago
  You need to clear your service workers for twitter Edit: - on chrom(e|ium) based browsers: chrome://serviceworker-internals/ - on firefox: about:debugging and scroll to service workers section
  - shakow 6y ago
    1. Why do I have to do that; what is the underlying bug? 2. How comes such a bug is still in production for months?
    - k_ 6y ago
      They deployed a bugged service worker long ago (beginning of 2020 or something), but service workers can be hard to replace because they tamper with requests and cache. "Technically" it's been fixed in production for a while, but it doesn't propagate so many still have the bug.. Still seems very strange to me that they allowed this situation to happen for such a huge (in traffic) website. Not sure how exactly the service worker was broken (I didn't have the curiosity to check in devtools, and now it's gone), but I had this exact same issue and saw other people having it right here on HN, and this was the way to solve it too.
      - shakow 6y ago
        I see. Thanks!
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
ThePhysicist 6y ago
It's really annoying that I can't consume information from social media sites without also opting into all of their slot-machine like mechanisms. Twitter is designed to pull people in and the main website contains a lot of gamification mechanisms that are designed to keep people on the site. For a while already I had the idea of building a "diet social media" software that would display information from e.g. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and other platforms without gamified addiction mechanisms. Turns out this is impossible to do as all platforms have drastically restricted the way you can consume their data.
- cobbzilla 6y ago
  Disclosure: author of Bubble Bubble [1] is a new kind of VPN that does just about exactly what you are looking for. On FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, Insta, etc, you can scroll through your feed and: * No ads! * No tracking! (except what you click, can't avoid this) * Auto-block posts matching keywords you don't like (politics/etc) * Auto-block posts that contain links to news websites (I use this on FB, it's great) * Block specific users whether you're connected to them or not. * Blocked users don't know you've blocked them, because the block is at the network-level, not in the social media service. Bubble is open source [2], our commercial offering is currently in beta. How does it work? It's basically a WireGuard VPN with a tightly-integrated mitmproxy. So it works on any device, but the social media blocking only works on the web (native apps are cert pinned, which breaks mitm). AMA. Oh did I mention it works on HN too? I rarely need to block a user here, but when I do, it sure is nice to have that feature! [1] https://getbubblenow.com https://getbubblenow.com [2] https://github.com/getbubblenow/bubble-docs https://github.com/getbubblenow/bubble-docs
  - mhils 6y ago
    Sorry, but this sounds a bit terrifying. All your traffic is going through Bubble's servers where it is TLS-intercepted and accessible as plaintext. Compared to a browser extension like uBlock, you don't see what is happening on Bubble's servers. You essentially need to trust a startup with all your internet traffic. The claim that it's "open source" a bit disingenious after looking through your GitHub repositories. It's not like you could test Bubble locally and then decide to use your hosted service. I think the overall use case is solid, but would be much better served with a browser extension. Also, very likely mitmproxy won't really scale that well to lots of users.
kilroy123 6y ago
This explains why my broken link checker bot is blowing up for every single twitter URL.
specialist 6y ago
I have never understood how to use Twitter. I simply cannot follow "the flow". I expect an RSS style newsreader. I just want to see what's new, in order. IMHO John Carmacks' old school finger file updates was the pinnacle of human achievement. Just aggregate everyone's finger updates into a swanky offline mail reader style UI. Heaven. I don't understand why links aren't links. eg Open this in a new tab. I don't understand why pull quotes are images. And tellingly, I don't care enough to figure it out, find a better way. PS- One thing missing from Twitter is the drive-by downvote. Too bad.
ArcVRArthur 6y ago
nitter.net still allows you to view tweets without JavaScript. Just replace the twitter.com part of the tweet URL.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
known 6y ago
Twitter recently moved to AWS; Is it due to it?

326 points by LyalinDotCom 6y ago

I guess this means a lot of malware/botnets that uses Twitter to communicate just broke today.

> We've detected that JavaScript is disabled in this > browser. Please enable JavaScript or switch to a supported > browser to continue using twitter.com. You can see a list > of supported browsers in our Help Center. So long then, Twitter. Consider for a minute the number of services/programs that just got screwed, the number of people on slow internet connections they just cut off, the number of people on low-end mobile devices that just lost access to local community discussions - the list goes on. Was it really so much to ask for a basic HTML interface to display text and images? In terms of resources, surely this is quite easy to support? I've been using mbasic.facebook.com without JS for years, for example. Sure, some features are screwed, but for the most part it works.

pmoriarty 6y ago
I've been using nitter.net to read tweets without javascript. I just append everything after the twitter.com domain name to https://nitter.net https://nitter.net to read the tweet in question. For example, the tweet this HN post links to could be read without javascript here: https://nitter.net/zarfeblong/status/1339742840142872577 https://nitter.net/zarfeblong/status/1339742840142872577
- politelemon 6y ago
  I'm using the privacy redirect extension which does this for all twitter links. It has equivalents for Instagram, maps and reddit too
  - fretn 6y ago
    Does somebody know if something exists for safari on macos ? Or is this with the new web extension framework still not possible ?
- CyberRabbi 6y ago
  I also use nitter for the that reason. I was under the impression that nitter screen scrapes so it’s interesting that it’s still working unchanged.
- segfaultbuserr 6y ago
  +1 for nitter.net. In recent years, Twitter started to block public proxies and Tor aggressively, if an IP address is rate-limited, all accesses are denied. Worse, because of JavaScript, it only denies access after the script has given up after spending 60 seconds. And even when I'm not blocked, the script is still slow, and if you accidentally refreshed the page while in the middle of an endless scrolling, you'll have to try again. Nitter.net solves all the problems at once. I don't use Twitter but I do maintain a list of people in tech, which I check from time to time.
  - ryukafalz 6y ago
    You don't even have to be using Tor to get blocked like this; I get rate limited fairly regularly just following Twitter links on my phone while on mobile data. I suspect it's because my carrier is doing CGNAT and I share an IP with several other users. Makes it annoying when someone links to Twitter as usually I'll have to sit there refreshing a few times before I can actually see it.
    - ollifi 6y ago
      I have no proof but I always assumed they do this to push phone users towards downloading the app.
      - etc-hosts 6y ago
        I run into issues like this running the app on my mobile.
- DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
  nitter is really the way I want to consume tweets (I'm not even on twitter but have my bookmarks to existing topics e.g. twitter lists and users that I tune into still - users that I used to follow when there - I used to follow hundreds but those that keep me coming back aren't more than 5). twitter without an account is twitter without the noise or risk of getting sucked into "contributing" (e.g. riling myself up lol) Sadly, when you submit links from nitter to HN they get automatically demoted (they won't even have a discuss link and will never see the frontpage). I don't know the reasoning but I guess the argument could be that - it violates original content rule (that official sources must be used). - some engineering just went into HN to show the user-name part of twitter posts in submitted links. (I took that as a reasoning why HN prefers twitter links rather than nitter - suppose that could easily be expanded though). - potential legal reasons (? I can't think of any but maybe HN respects the claim of twitter that the data belongs to them etc ...) just speculation but fact is there is no nitter support on HN.
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago
  By Jove, is this interface snappier and more convenient.
- dastx 6y ago
  TIL! This is great. Thanks for posting.
- solstice 6y ago
  There are a bunch of different instances running the nitter software too, so please consider choosing another one to avoid hugging nitter.net too much. Here's the list: https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Instances https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Instances
- secondcoming 6y ago
  That's not fair. Someone put a lot of time and effort into that spinning wheel animation. By removing the need for JS the tweet now loads too quickly for it to be seen!
- 0-_-0 6y ago
  You can use this [0] browser plugin to automatically redirect to Nitter. You can also choose which instance to redirect to, or to choose an instance randomly every time (for load balancing). Also supports: YouTube -> Invidio.us Instagram -> Bibliogram Google Maps -> OpenStreetMap reddit.com -> old.reddit.com or i.reddit.com [0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/privacy-redirect/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/privacy-redir...
  - est31 6y ago
    For reddit, there's also teddit: https://teddit.net/ https://teddit.net/
  - justaj 6y ago
    AFAIK the extension HTTPS Everywhere can do this too, but its UI for doing this is kind of haphazard.
  - Shared404 6y ago
    > Invidio.us This domain is dead, I currently am using invidious.xyz
    - 0-_-0 6y ago
      The plugin lets you choose between 12 alternatives, or choose randomly every time.
  - nicbou 6y ago
    Open Street Map is not a replacement for Google Maps. Not even close. It's a different product with overlapping features. As a detailed map, it's vastly superior. As a way to find locations and information about them, it's not nearly as good.
- krebs_liebhaber 6y ago
  My favorite part of nitter.net is the RSS feeds. Stick them in your reader of choice, refresh them with an hourly cron job, and you can keep up with all your favorite twatterers with no need for an account.
- JeremyNT 6y ago
  I love Nitter, but I can't help but feel like it's on borrowed time. Eventually Twitter is going to decide it's a problem. The day Nitter is killed is likely the day I stop using Twitter. Yes, I know you can host your own, but if Twitter decides to actively fight against it the best case scenario is an annoying cat and mouse game that makes the service unreliable.
RyanGoosling 6y ago
Can you use chromium cli? https://www.npmjs.com/package/puppeteer https://www.npmjs.com/package/puppeteer
- GoblinSlayer 6y ago
  I remember there was a tui python client for a number of such sites like reddit and stuff.
- nothasan 6y ago
  I don’t think this would really count as CLI, you still load up a full browser.
jakub_g 6y ago
BTW messenger over mbasic.facebook.com stopped working for me last week and throws errors. Am I the only one? The only web way to use FB messages for me now is the bloated desktop web experience (which takes 10s+ to load)
- bArray 6y ago
  mbasic.facebook.com still works perfectly fine for me.
  - jakub_g 6y ago
    The website continues to work, but when you go to "Messages" tab, it shows an error.
    - bArray 6y ago
      Not for me? Seems to work as per normal in my case. I can't tell you exactly why that is though.
      - jakub_g 6y ago
        Are you based in EU or outside? Perhaps it's an EU-only bug/feature after latest changes to be compliant with EU privacy rules.
        bArray 6y ago
        I'm currently based outside the EU and US, perhaps it is as you say. I'm not entirely sure why the privacy rules would change so drastically on a HTML based page though...
- tonoto 6y ago
  You are not the only one. I've used other browsers on my android to use facebook over m.facebook.com, but about a week ago Facebook Messenger messages was disabled with an error message and also the alternative mbasic.facebook.com was crippled for me. So anyone messaging me have to wait until I'm at home. Their ordinary web experience since the latest(?) change of UI is horrible, notifications takes forever to render forcing a full page refresh to get back working.
numpad0 6y ago
> Was it really so much to ask for a basic HTML interface to display text and images? Yes; it allows automated mass aggregation of hard, accurate, and current information, which is not only non-ideal from profit perspective but also for maintaining community active and/or engaging
giancarlostoro 6y ago
Guess its time for me to uninstall the app. That is entirely detestable behavior in my eyes. If you want me to use your products dont cripple them.
chadlavi 6y ago
Twitter doesn't make any money off those people.

Tipewryter 6y ago

Thought experiment: How hard would it be to write a centralized 1-to-many message pipe that replicates Twitters core functionality? How hard would it be to run such a thing? The moral and legal needs to censor content would probably be a bigger task then the technical implementation?

sdan 6y ago
In the recent past, I've seen Twitter harshly ban account I randomly make. Sometimes its weeks before they ask for a phone number and if you don't have a real number (iirc they check against VoIP) they won't unrestrict you. If you have the same IP as other account I think they also might auto restrict you.
- hertzrat 6y ago
  They banned my account for unnamed terms of use violations after my first post saying “well, I finally made a Twitter account.” Their support replied with “queries will not be responded to.” It was for the best
- encom 6y ago
  Several years ago I tried to make a Twitter account. It got banned before I posted anything. I hadn't even subscribed to any users. I was going through the settings, and then \bam\, banned for being a bot, or some such nonsense. Nothing of value was lost.
  - 5560675260 6y ago
    Twitter aggressively tries to get phone numbers from new users - providing it is the main way to get unbanned in cases like this.
    - encom 6y ago
      Unless you're my mother, or maybe if you're part of my immediate family, you're not getting my phone number. American giant corporation with questionable ethics: hard no.

mellosouls 6y ago

Where is the evidence/documentation for this claim; ie that it's a general policy? I'm not disputing it but its just a tweet that doesn't provide context.

klodolph 6y ago
Here is how you verify it yourself, curl https://twitter.com/zarfeblong/status/1339742840142872577
- ALittleLight 6y ago
  Still possible to curl, just looks like it is a bit more obnoxious now and requires parameters like your browserAgent and cookie to be set. Look in your network tab for requests to an endpoint like this[1] with a lot of query parameters after. 1- https://twitter.com/i/api/2/timeline/conversation/<twitter https://twitter.com/i/api/2/timeline/conversation/<twitter status id>.json
  - ignoranceprior 6y ago
    Any HTTP request you can make with a browser can in principle be made with curl. The issue is that seeing content now requires you to jump through lots of hoops, whereas it was previously openly accessible by default.
    - ALittleLight 6y ago
      That's true. I agree it is a worse change and obnoxious for twitter to do (unless there is some easy way I/we just aren't aware of that lets you easily get the tweets as before).
- voltagex_ 6y ago
  As pointed out by https://twitter.com/magusnn/status/1339833122456662017 https://twitter.com/magusnn/status/1339833122456662017, you can impersonate GoogleBot and get an eye-watering 500kb of HTML to read a single tweet.

ffpip 6y ago

Twitter previously didn't serve up a preview with mobile.twitter.com links. I noticed it in Whatsapp, so not sure whether it's twitter's fault or Whatsapp's fault. Changing mobile.twitter.com to twitter.com enabled the tweet preview.

jtsiskin 6y ago
“We found site visitation increased 1% after removing the preview, ship it”
- Spivak 6y ago
  I mean for any network with that many users if you can get a 1% increase for any single change that's pretty impressive. I mean Google has invented whole protocols and formats to save small percentages of traffic.

zarfeblong 6y ago

Thanks for the nitter.net pointer -- I wasn't aware of that. That will be helpful. I know (in principle) how to use curl to send an authenticated API request via HTTP. That's authenticated; you have to log in. I already have a twitter client for that use case. There's also unauthenticated API access (read-only public tweets only, as you'd expect). (I assume this is what nitter.net is doing.) Less tracking, but you still have to request an API key, so it is under Twitter's control and they could in theory cut it off. It's still not supporting the basic web principle of "you can GET the flippin' data". Anyhow, I'm glad this is getting some public attention. I'm a little surprised that I was the first one to make a fuss about it.

RyanGoosling 6y ago
Chromium cli? https://www.npmjs.com/package/puppeteer https://www.npmjs.com/package/puppeteer

cblconfederate 6y ago

You cant even link to a tweet that is part of a thread , only to the top tweet. It takes effort to do such blunders

throwawaysea 6y ago

So what’s the alternative? Is there some easy scripting tool to automate a browser to login (?) and issue requests to read tweets? I’m not very clear on what exactly is blocked here and what the workarounds are.

smartbit 6y ago
maybe adding googlebot https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25464280#25465039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25464280#25465039

nullify88 6y ago

You can HTTP GET tweets again by changing your useragent to Googlebot. curl -A "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://google.com/bot.html http://google.com/bot.html)" "https://twitter.com/zarfeblong/status/1339742840142872577 https://twitter.com/zarfeblong/status/1339742840142872577" Peak SEO when users are faced with more friction than Googlebots and crawlers.

neiman 6y ago
In 2020, the only way for netzidents to do get what they naturally deserve is by hacking.
- bzb6 6y ago
  How do you “naturally deserve” to access the contents of the Twitter website?
  - morsch 6y ago
    I agree, that's just cruel. No one deserves being subjected to Twitter.
  - devmor 6y ago
    Since it became a dissemination service for public officials. The moment it became illegal for the US President to block people on Twitter, it should have become illegal for Twitter to restrict access to information to the public, for the same reason.
- cooper12 6y ago
  Setting your user agent would only be considered hacking by the same people who think the Internet is a series of pipes. The browsers themselves copy each other's user agents for interoperability, so it's far past the point that changing it to look like another agent would be considered devious.
  - nextaccountic 6y ago

herbst 6y ago

Twitter once enflamed my enthusiasm for API programming. Today i can barely make an account without getting blocked. Its sad how it changed

trident5000 6y ago
They have a bot issue thats currently out of control.
syshum 6y ago
This is a reoccuring pattern Startup = Good Open API Middle = Start Closing API for "Quality, Security and Privacy" Large = Block all access to API unless you are another Big corporation... Every platform has gone through this life cycle, it is predictable at this point Edit: And dont for get the new excuse "bots are everywhere" the go to red herring to justify anti-user anti-consumer actions on 2020

rhn_mk1 6y ago

I'm surprised this has been noticed now. This has been happening to me with Firefox on and off for about a year, until I decided to switch to nitter.

X-Istence 6y ago

This is an issue I've noticed too... when I open a new tab (in the background) to Twitter, then Safari won't execute the javascript until I go to the tab and hit refresh. It sucks, because it adds a new refresh cycle just to see the tweet.

jakub_g 6y ago
I don't use Safari but there are possibly 3 issues behind this: - Twitter having a broken service worker (saw this a lot on Twitter discussions in last weeks) - Safari perhaps lowering the JS execution priority in background tabs - Twitter trying to be nice and only exec JS while their page is in foreground, and hitting a bug in Safari regarding visibilitychange callback not firing (which is fixed in Safari 14 by the way)
- X-Istence 6y ago
  I'm running Safari 14.0.2 on Mac OS 11.1. Safari does lower background javascript execution, it allows it to save on battery life for background tabs. I want this. I want it to save battery life. So Twitter should make sure their javascript executes correctly when it is foregrounded and Safari does start executing it. Either way, I honestly don't care too much why it is broken, Twitter could have sent a pre-rendered page down.
- dspillett 6y ago
  > Twitter having a broken service worker (saw this a lot on Twitter discussions in last weeks) Any references/links for that sort of breakage? I'm looking at using service workers for a personal project (mainly of offlining, but partly for background processing). Being throttled in a background tab is fine, but I'd like it to work fully without manual interaction (a refresh) once the tab has focus.
  - jakub_g 6y ago
    I don't know the details unfortunately, other than "force-reload fixes the issue".

bonoboTP 6y ago

I also got blocked a few hours after registering and had to give my phone number to get unblocked. I did nothing suspicious: filled out my profile in a normal way with nothing political and followed a few researchers but nothing en masse. I wrote to support to ask why this is, but no reply of course. I still gave it because I'm a little guy and want to get the benefits of being tapped into my professional community, to know what's up, to be visible myself etc. Such individual decisions result in this. We users have a hard time coordinating as we have individual incentives while Twitter is one entity and can do whatever it decides.

baud147258 6y ago
I'm pretty sure asking for the phone number is standard
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  But then why not ask for it when registering? Well, of course to decrease friction and avoid turning people away at the entrance. You get smacked in the face with the request for your phone, once you've followed some interesting people, interacted with the site a bit and will form some attachment. Then you are more likely to enter your phone to keep using it. There's a psychological effect of feeling more strongly about retaining a given amount of already owned value compared to gaining an equivalent amount of stuff you don't have yet. You wouldn't pay with your phone number to get a Twitter account, but you would pay with it to keep an account you already have and started using. Dark patterns.
- apricot 6y ago
  I'll tell them mine if they tell me theirs.
nebalee 6y ago
I had the same happening, created an account and it was locked the same day only to be unlocked when I provide a phone number. I wrote them an email telling them I refuse to give them my number for privacy reasons and they unlocked my account the next day.

BlueTemplar 6y ago

Hmm, so I guess that Twitter just feels big enough to just leave the World Wide Web?

dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago

So they joined the ranks of websites that can't be used without JS. Websites that basically just display text. This is breaking the web happening right in front of us.

shakow 6y ago

Speaking of Twitter UI, am I the only one having to hard refresh every other Twitter page to get rid of the “This is not available for you” message?

oarfish 6y ago
No, I as well always use uMatrix's reload with cache bypass to circumvent the block.
k_ 6y ago
You need to clear your service workers for twitter Edit: - on chrom(e|ium) based browsers: chrome://serviceworker-internals/ - on firefox: about:debugging and scroll to service workers section
- shakow 6y ago
  1. Why do I have to do that; what is the underlying bug? 2. How comes such a bug is still in production for months?
  - k_ 6y ago
    They deployed a bugged service worker long ago (beginning of 2020 or something), but service workers can be hard to replace because they tamper with requests and cache. "Technically" it's been fixed in production for a while, but it doesn't propagate so many still have the bug.. Still seems very strange to me that they allowed this situation to happen for such a huge (in traffic) website. Not sure how exactly the service worker was broken (I didn't have the curiosity to check in devtools, and now it's gone), but I had this exact same issue and saw other people having it right here on HN, and this was the way to solve it too.
    - shakow 6y ago
      I see. Thanks!
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

ThePhysicist 6y ago

It's really annoying that I can't consume information from social media sites without also opting into all of their slot-machine like mechanisms. Twitter is designed to pull people in and the main website contains a lot of gamification mechanisms that are designed to keep people on the site. For a while already I had the idea of building a "diet social media" software that would display information from e.g. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and other platforms without gamified addiction mechanisms. Turns out this is impossible to do as all platforms have drastically restricted the way you can consume their data.

cobbzilla 6y ago
Disclosure: author of Bubble Bubble [1] is a new kind of VPN that does just about exactly what you are looking for. On FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, Insta, etc, you can scroll through your feed and: * No ads! * No tracking! (except what you click, can't avoid this) * Auto-block posts matching keywords you don't like (politics/etc) * Auto-block posts that contain links to news websites (I use this on FB, it's great) * Block specific users whether you're connected to them or not. * Blocked users don't know you've blocked them, because the block is at the network-level, not in the social media service. Bubble is open source [2], our commercial offering is currently in beta. How does it work? It's basically a WireGuard VPN with a tightly-integrated mitmproxy. So it works on any device, but the social media blocking only works on the web (native apps are cert pinned, which breaks mitm). AMA. Oh did I mention it works on HN too? I rarely need to block a user here, but when I do, it sure is nice to have that feature! [1] https://getbubblenow.com https://getbubblenow.com [2] https://github.com/getbubblenow/bubble-docs https://github.com/getbubblenow/bubble-docs
- mhils 6y ago
  Sorry, but this sounds a bit terrifying. All your traffic is going through Bubble's servers where it is TLS-intercepted and accessible as plaintext. Compared to a browser extension like uBlock, you don't see what is happening on Bubble's servers. You essentially need to trust a startup with all your internet traffic. The claim that it's "open source" a bit disingenious after looking through your GitHub repositories. It's not like you could test Bubble locally and then decide to use your hosted service. I think the overall use case is solid, but would be much better served with a browser extension. Also, very likely mitmproxy won't really scale that well to lots of users.

kilroy123 6y ago

This explains why my broken link checker bot is blowing up for every single twitter URL.

specialist 6y ago

I have never understood how to use Twitter. I simply cannot follow "the flow". I expect an RSS style newsreader. I just want to see what's new, in order. IMHO John Carmacks' old school finger file updates was the pinnacle of human achievement. Just aggregate everyone's finger updates into a swanky offline mail reader style UI. Heaven. I don't understand why links aren't links. eg Open this in a new tab. I don't understand why pull quotes are images. And tellingly, I don't care enough to figure it out, find a better way. PS- One thing missing from Twitter is the drive-by downvote. Too bad.

ArcVRArthur 6y ago

nitter.net still allows you to view tweets without JavaScript. Just replace the twitter.com part of the tweet URL.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

known 6y ago

Twitter recently moved to AWS; Is it due to it?