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The Twitter web UI if you are not logged in is purposefully broken. Every so often, it will just show you "access denied" or "you don't have permission". It is

The Twitter web UI if you are not logged in is purposefully broken. Every so often, it will just show you "access denied" or "you don't have permission". It is the peak of dark patterns.

wlesieutre 5y ago
I think this is a bug rather than deliberately blocked. The on-page retry button will continuously fail, but if you go up to the address bar and keep hitting enter it will eventually work. Still embarrassing for a tech company of twitter's size. Displaying a tweet to a logged out user should be the single simplest job their service has, but it's usually broken.
- jaypeg25 5y ago
  The fact that threaded tweet links like this don't work on non-official apps (I use Talon on Android), to me, is a sign that this is deliberate.
  - thrdbndndn 5y ago
    https://github.com/klinker-apps/talon-for-twitter-android/issues/133 https://github.com/klinker-apps/talon-for-twitter-android/is... Twitter's thread/reply API has been changed a lot. It definitely works better now. I will also be honest, Talon basically isn't really updated any more. I remembered the last time I used it, it has a bug that it will always re-save/re-compress the image when you download, which is very easy to fix, but the author didn't do anything about it. I just checked, the bug is still there.. https://github.com/klinker-apps/talon-for-twitter-android/issues/147 https://github.com/klinker-apps/talon-for-twitter-android/is... and https://github.com/klinker-apps/talon-for-twitter-android/issues/105 https://github.com/klinker-apps/talon-for-twitter-android/is...
  - newsclues 5y ago
    They need users, they rather avoid non-users that just want the content. Twitter is a private company but it has also become a public space for political discourse. The need for profits and open free speech are butting heads.
  - supercheetah 5y ago
    Thinking that it was intentionally made broken, or deliberately broken at some point is rather presumptuous. As has been said before, don't assume maliciousness when incompetence is a better explanation. That said, I would buy that ignoring and any fix for it is deliberate.
- teucris 5y ago
  Thank you! I had given up on reading any HN post from Twitter because of this issue.
- speedgoose 5y ago
  Twitter has not fixed this bug for many many months. I think they are very happy to have it because I do not believe Twitter cannot fix it if they want to.
  - hamburglar 5y ago
    Years. I’ve never used a Twitter app, but this bug has occurred a high percentage of the time I view a tweet in the browser of every smartphone I’ve ever owned.
- thrdbndndn 5y ago
  >embarrassing for a tech company of twitter's size I'm a heavy user of Twitter. They have the most ridiculous bugs all the time Let me list a few I can remind in recent two years: 1. A serious bug that makes the private lists' name, member count, and description visible to everyone for half a way 2. ANOTHER private list exposure bug after a year 3. Lots of their features are semi- or totally broken, the most obvious example being Moments. Some minor ones are like "twitter anniversary" etc. 4. Media files being totally lost/404, especially for some older tweets 5. UI: "Checked" mark for adding people to lists being invisible for at least a week 5.1. UI: some UI elements suddenly become black for a few weeks regardless what theme you use 6. Outage: Like function broken for almost a day 7. Outage: Timeline broken (no update) for half day 8. This probably isn't a bug but a "shadow block" feature, but I can't follow some accounts (and their following/follower count doesn't show) if my IP is in certain region. 9. Huge feature disparity between web and app, or iOS and Android And needless to say, their support is beyond unhelpful, and they don't really have a proper place to report technical issues/bugs of their service.
  - Lorin 5y ago
    Don't forget videos appearing as a blocky mess for the majority of playback time no matter how good your internet connection is.
    - Pulcinella 5y ago
      Yeah Twitter’s video compression is practically a parody of bad video compression.
  - madeofpalk 5y ago
    I was surprised by being able to see a tweet from a user who had blocked me after someone mentioned it in my replies.
garaetjjte 5y ago
It seems to require randomly from 1 to 5 page refreshes to display anything (and don't be fooled by helpful retry button, it won't work, you need to use browser refresh). I thought it was just broken, but you say it works when logged in? WTF.
- darkwater 5y ago
  Most probable explanation: logged and notlogged requests go through a different path in the infrastructure and the not logged one doesn't work that good and they have no pressure in fixing it. Maybe it's not a dark pattern but it smells like one for sure.
- tyingq 5y ago
  Try copy/paste of the URL into a brand new browser tab. Works for me, every time. Which means it's probably something to do with the Referer header being set? Anti-flooding/hotlinking maybe?
delecti 5y ago
That's entirely possible. I don't really ever browse it without being logged in.
tempest_ 5y ago
It has been like that for years too. I basically wont read Twitter threads because of it, perhaps I am better off for it.
tyingq 5y ago
I noticed it almost never happens if you copy/paste the url into a browser. Seems related to navigating in with a Referer header set.
anonymousab 5y ago
This happens regardless of whether you are logged in or not. IIRC it's some weird implementation bug with how they use webworkers. There was an HN thread on it a couple of months ago that prescribed some fixes. It varies by browser, browser version and some other things like what chrome may be a/b testing for you. The fixes are temporary, though. Dunno why Twitter seems to have completely deprioritized the issue though. They change the error message every once in a while but nothing else.
simias 5y ago
On top of that this particular chain is quite egregious because Carmack didn't even bother editing his text to be twit-friendly. It just breaks in the middle of sentences. It's pretty amusing to me that this modern, high-res, multi-megabyte page has worse usability than when we could just "finger" Carmack's .plan from a terminal 20 years ago. Maybe we should try to bring finger back. We could pretend that it uses the blockchain to drive adoption.
- dan1234 5y ago
  We just need to sell an NFT each time a .plan changes.

The Twitter web UI if you are not logged in is purposefully broken. Every so often, it will just show you "access denied" or "you don't have permission". It is the peak of dark patterns.

wlesieutre 5y ago

I think this is a bug rather than deliberately blocked. The on-page retry button will continuously fail, but if you go up to the address bar and keep hitting enter it will eventually work. Still embarrassing for a tech company of twitter's size. Displaying a tweet to a logged out user should be the single simplest job their service has, but it's usually broken.

jaypeg25 5y ago
The fact that threaded tweet links like this don't work on non-official apps (I use Talon on Android), to me, is a sign that this is deliberate.
- thrdbndndn 5y ago
  https://github.com/klinker-apps/talon-for-twitter-android/issues/133 https://github.com/klinker-apps/talon-for-twitter-android/is... Twitter's thread/reply API has been changed a lot. It definitely works better now. I will also be honest, Talon basically isn't really updated any more. I remembered the last time I used it, it has a bug that it will always re-save/re-compress the image when you download, which is very easy to fix, but the author didn't do anything about it. I just checked, the bug is still there.. https://github.com/klinker-apps/talon-for-twitter-android/issues/147 https://github.com/klinker-apps/talon-for-twitter-android/is... and https://github.com/klinker-apps/talon-for-twitter-android/issues/105 https://github.com/klinker-apps/talon-for-twitter-android/is...
- newsclues 5y ago
  They need users, they rather avoid non-users that just want the content. Twitter is a private company but it has also become a public space for political discourse. The need for profits and open free speech are butting heads.
- supercheetah 5y ago
  Thinking that it was intentionally made broken, or deliberately broken at some point is rather presumptuous. As has been said before, don't assume maliciousness when incompetence is a better explanation. That said, I would buy that ignoring and any fix for it is deliberate.
teucris 5y ago
Thank you! I had given up on reading any HN post from Twitter because of this issue.
speedgoose 5y ago
Twitter has not fixed this bug for many many months. I think they are very happy to have it because I do not believe Twitter cannot fix it if they want to.
- hamburglar 5y ago
  Years. I’ve never used a Twitter app, but this bug has occurred a high percentage of the time I view a tweet in the browser of every smartphone I’ve ever owned.
thrdbndndn 5y ago
>embarrassing for a tech company of twitter's size I'm a heavy user of Twitter. They have the most ridiculous bugs all the time Let me list a few I can remind in recent two years: 1. A serious bug that makes the private lists' name, member count, and description visible to everyone for half a way 2. ANOTHER private list exposure bug after a year 3. Lots of their features are semi- or totally broken, the most obvious example being Moments. Some minor ones are like "twitter anniversary" etc. 4. Media files being totally lost/404, especially for some older tweets 5. UI: "Checked" mark for adding people to lists being invisible for at least a week 5.1. UI: some UI elements suddenly become black for a few weeks regardless what theme you use 6. Outage: Like function broken for almost a day 7. Outage: Timeline broken (no update) for half day 8. This probably isn't a bug but a "shadow block" feature, but I can't follow some accounts (and their following/follower count doesn't show) if my IP is in certain region. 9. Huge feature disparity between web and app, or iOS and Android And needless to say, their support is beyond unhelpful, and they don't really have a proper place to report technical issues/bugs of their service.
- Lorin 5y ago
  Don't forget videos appearing as a blocky mess for the majority of playback time no matter how good your internet connection is.
  - Pulcinella 5y ago
    Yeah Twitter’s video compression is practically a parody of bad video compression.
- madeofpalk 5y ago
  I was surprised by being able to see a tweet from a user who had blocked me after someone mentioned it in my replies.

garaetjjte 5y ago

It seems to require randomly from 1 to 5 page refreshes to display anything (and don't be fooled by helpful retry button, it won't work, you need to use browser refresh). I thought it was just broken, but you say it works when logged in? WTF.

darkwater 5y ago
Most probable explanation: logged and notlogged requests go through a different path in the infrastructure and the not logged one doesn't work that good and they have no pressure in fixing it. Maybe it's not a dark pattern but it smells like one for sure.
tyingq 5y ago
Try copy/paste of the URL into a brand new browser tab. Works for me, every time. Which means it's probably something to do with the Referer header being set? Anti-flooding/hotlinking maybe?

delecti 5y ago

That's entirely possible. I don't really ever browse it without being logged in.

tempest_ 5y ago

It has been like that for years too. I basically wont read Twitter threads because of it, perhaps I am better off for it.

tyingq 5y ago

I noticed it almost never happens if you copy/paste the url into a browser. Seems related to navigating in with a Referer header set.

anonymousab 5y ago

This happens regardless of whether you are logged in or not. IIRC it's some weird implementation bug with how they use webworkers. There was an HN thread on it a couple of months ago that prescribed some fixes. It varies by browser, browser version and some other things like what chrome may be a/b testing for you. The fixes are temporary, though. Dunno why Twitter seems to have completely deprioritized the issue though. They change the error message every once in a while but nothing else.

simias 5y ago

On top of that this particular chain is quite egregious because Carmack didn't even bother editing his text to be twit-friendly. It just breaks in the middle of sentences. It's pretty amusing to me that this modern, high-res, multi-megabyte page has worse usability than when we could just "finger" Carmack's .plan from a terminal 20 years ago. Maybe we should try to bring finger back. We could pretend that it uses the blockchain to drive adoption.

dan1234 5y ago
We just need to sell an NFT each time a .plan changes.