15 ms·

Twitter blocks users from sharing Mastodon links

138 points by cillian64 4y ago

Robin_Message 4y ago
Absolutely insane that they would do this. It's like they thought "what's the most obvious anti-trust violation we could implement in a day using existing code?" and then did.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  Is it anti-trust? It seems blatantly anticompetitive but I’m curious what specific law they seem to be breaking (so I can add it to my anti-Twitter complaining heap).
  - rvz 4y ago
    > Is it anti-trust? No it is not. Twitter does not have a monopoly on social media. > It seems blatantly anticompetitive but I’m curious what specific law they seem to be breaking (so I can add it to my anti-Twitter complaining heap). None. They have done it in the past [0] and no-one complained apart from techies here getting emotional about it. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31607941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31607941
    - xg15 4y ago
      Did anyone except techies actually know about it?
- monsecchris 4y ago
  - walls 4y ago
    - monsecchris 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - anderber 4y ago
        Didn't they post something against their ToS?
        monsecchris 4y ago
        Nope.
        _aavaa_ 4y ago
        If you’ve referring to the Hunter Biden laptop story, the TOS were updated in response to that story in order to make the story against the ToS.
  - bradhe 4y ago
    [flagged]
- carlivar 4y ago
  In what way does anti-trust apply? How is Twitter a monopoly?
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    I’m not sure whether this actually falls under anti-trust. But you should know they anti-trust laws cover things other than monopolies. I’m sure you weren’t trying to, but switching from anti-trust to monopoly is a pretty common and easy to spot move of the goal-posts. https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/antitrust-laws https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/anticompetitive-practices https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/anticompetitive-practices
    - carlivar 4y ago
      Ahh good to know. I definitely equated "anti-trust" with monopoly. I agree it is anti-competitive.
  - Robin_Message 4y ago
    Quoting the FTC https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/antitrust-laws https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... : "[...] antitrust laws have had the same basic objective: to protect the process of competition for the benefit of consumers, making sure there are strong incentives for businesses to operate efficiently, keep prices down, and keep quality up." A monopoly that abuses its power is one example of anti-trust; it is not the definition.
- throwawayacc3 4y ago
  I remember for years the left's war cry was "Twitter is a private company, they do not have to host your content". "You and your ilk can post your filth on a dozen other websites, Twitter is not a monopoly." "Twitter isn't censoring you, they just don't want to listen to your bullshit, and they're showing you the door (relevant xkcd posted everywhere: https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/)" Some of us warned that if the tables turned, so would their tune. "Twitter is much like the public square, and banning dissenting voices shouldn't be celebrated" we warned. Just a few years later, here we are. I feel vindicated.
  - swasheck 4y ago
    the problem is that when the people who complained about the behavior now celebrate and initiate the behavior, it renders their initial objection as insincere and self-serving. what i've seen is that a lot of this is less about complaining about the behavior, and more of a crusade to highlight the hypocrisy of both elon and his acolytes. if he wants to ban mastodon links he's certainly welcome to do so - it's his company. it's just a bad look after positioning himself as a free speech, open market crusader who politically platformed himself as against the very thing he's doing.
  - imknewhere 4y ago
    So, "the right" has latched on to Free Speech being like a major pillar of their worldview. Musk has shifted himself to be more allied with the right. He also proclaimed that he was taking over Twitter in order to free it from censorship (ie - Twitter is the place for free speech). Now it turns out that Musk doesn't really care about free speech. He just wants to control what the content of the speech is. This is an example that affirms the suspicions of the left: that the right's proclamations about speech are disingenuous. As I understand it, this is why people are calling him out.
    - throwawayfear 4y ago
      No, doxxing someone isn’t free speech anymore than saying “fire” in a crowded theater when there isn’t one is. Against the policies and rules. Doesn’t matter if it’s a CEO you dislike that is being doxxed. The people on the left are the ones being disingenuous.
LinuxBender 4y ago
Perhaps a work-around would be to have a landing page or redirector that when accessed by a bot just talks about how wonderful Twitter is but when a human accesses it you get redirected to a particular Mastodon instance. Is that doable in code? I know how to do this in Nginx and HAProxy ACL's. Do the Twitter crawlers use HTTP/2.0 yet? Google and assorted gaming/chat platform crawlers are still limited to HTTP/1.1.
- cactusplant7374 4y ago
  Just use a URL shortener. I tried it with TinyURL and it works. If they block that shortened URL just create another one and attach some random query vars so you don't get the same short link.
t0mas88 4y ago
I hope they took the Streisand effect into account... Tech users know Mastodon, others are now going to Google it based on mainstream media headlines. Big mistake.
phoe-krk 4y ago
Possible dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34010112 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34010112
proactivesvcs 4y ago
BBC journalists also seem to refuse to share links to Mastodon :-)
jtode 4y ago
What was that thing that that guy said... first they laugh at you...
norwalkbear 4y ago
- ancapsfascists 4y ago
  My dad, in his 70s and with zero interest in tech called me to point out Elon's meltdowns. Every tech person I know (except for right wing political folks who put politics first) also consider this extraordinary. I've literally met no one who thinks things are going fine.
- dragontamer 4y ago
  There is a real life bubble as well. If I know someone as a Muskovite, I'm not going to talk about Twitter or Musk in front of them. They're just not rational or worth interacting with. And I'm sure they think the same of me. People are tribal. If you wanna get things done or work professionally with people, you ignore politics and focus on work.
- themitigating 4y ago
  [flagged]
- boomlinde 4y ago
  You say that, based on anecdotal experience, but the move on Twitter's part to ban links to competitors after making a big fuzz about free speech is hard to frame as anything but desperate.
- rchaud 4y ago
  This sounds like it's from 6 months ago. No, people in the public sphere do not think Musk is doing OK with Twitter. They thought he was doing well when all they saw was him on stage taking credit for Tesla and SpaceX's engineering work. Now he is at a company where he is dictator supreme, his actions are far more public, and nothing has done more to tear away the illusion of his Midas touch. He's muttering about 'woke mind virus' due to boos at a Chappelle show where the audience were laughing at a half hour of LGBT jokes.
  - 4y ago
Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
Well, well, well. For years I've been talking about how bad this online censorship is [0][1][etc], but people here were pretty chill with what was happening. Turns out, when it started happening to their side, they all suddenly started behaving very hysterical. Who could have thought that social platform neutrality is a good thing?! [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28697128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28697128 [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25665232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25665232
- themitigating 4y ago
  "Their side?" Anyone who posts Mastadon links are being banned regardless of political affiliations. Also whether censorship is right or wrong is normally based on what is being censored not the person.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
    > Anyone who posts Mastadon links are being banned regardless of political affiliations. This is simply not true, just search Mastodon.social links on Twitter via this link, and notice that posters are not banned: https://twitter.com/search?q=https%3A%2F%2Fmastodon.social&src=typed_query&f=live https://twitter.com/search?q=https%3A%2F%2Fmastodon.social&s... You could even search https://twitter.com/search?q=https%3A%2F%2Fmastodon.social%2F%40elonjet&src=typed_query&f=live https://twitter.com/search?q=https%3A%2F%2Fmastodon.social%2... , who post specifically about banned @elonjet account, and my first ten clicks on posters all happened to be non-suspended account. I don't think there is a need to check it further, your point is already invalidated.
    - notpachet 4y ago
      You're right about those users not being summarily banned. But it's still interesting what happens when you try to click one of those Mastodon links...
      - Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ChrisArchitect 4y ago
Plenty of discussion over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34010112 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34010112
bfrog 4y ago
Sounds like some awesome freedom of speech going on
- intelVISA 4y ago
  I need some librespeech

138 points by cillian64 4y ago

Absolutely insane that they would do this. It's like they thought "what's the most obvious anti-trust violation we could implement in a day using existing code?" and then did.

bee_rider 4y ago
Is it anti-trust? It seems blatantly anticompetitive but I’m curious what specific law they seem to be breaking (so I can add it to my anti-Twitter complaining heap).
- rvz 4y ago
  > Is it anti-trust? No it is not. Twitter does not have a monopoly on social media. > It seems blatantly anticompetitive but I’m curious what specific law they seem to be breaking (so I can add it to my anti-Twitter complaining heap). None. They have done it in the past [0] and no-one complained apart from techies here getting emotional about it. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31607941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31607941
  - xg15 4y ago
    Did anyone except techies actually know about it?
monsecchris 4y ago
- walls 4y ago
  - monsecchris 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - anderber 4y ago
      Didn't they post something against their ToS?
      - monsecchris 4y ago
        Nope.
      - _aavaa_ 4y ago
        If you’ve referring to the Hunter Biden laptop story, the TOS were updated in response to that story in order to make the story against the ToS.
- bradhe 4y ago
  [flagged]
carlivar 4y ago
In what way does anti-trust apply? How is Twitter a monopoly?
- bee_rider 4y ago
  I’m not sure whether this actually falls under anti-trust. But you should know they anti-trust laws cover things other than monopolies. I’m sure you weren’t trying to, but switching from anti-trust to monopoly is a pretty common and easy to spot move of the goal-posts. https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/antitrust-laws https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/anticompetitive-practices https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/anticompetitive-practices
  - carlivar 4y ago
    Ahh good to know. I definitely equated "anti-trust" with monopoly. I agree it is anti-competitive.
- Robin_Message 4y ago
  Quoting the FTC https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/antitrust-laws https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... : "[...] antitrust laws have had the same basic objective: to protect the process of competition for the benefit of consumers, making sure there are strong incentives for businesses to operate efficiently, keep prices down, and keep quality up." A monopoly that abuses its power is one example of anti-trust; it is not the definition.
throwawayacc3 4y ago
I remember for years the left's war cry was "Twitter is a private company, they do not have to host your content". "You and your ilk can post your filth on a dozen other websites, Twitter is not a monopoly." "Twitter isn't censoring you, they just don't want to listen to your bullshit, and they're showing you the door (relevant xkcd posted everywhere: https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/)" Some of us warned that if the tables turned, so would their tune. "Twitter is much like the public square, and banning dissenting voices shouldn't be celebrated" we warned. Just a few years later, here we are. I feel vindicated.
- swasheck 4y ago
  the problem is that when the people who complained about the behavior now celebrate and initiate the behavior, it renders their initial objection as insincere and self-serving. what i've seen is that a lot of this is less about complaining about the behavior, and more of a crusade to highlight the hypocrisy of both elon and his acolytes. if he wants to ban mastodon links he's certainly welcome to do so - it's his company. it's just a bad look after positioning himself as a free speech, open market crusader who politically platformed himself as against the very thing he's doing.
- imknewhere 4y ago
  So, "the right" has latched on to Free Speech being like a major pillar of their worldview. Musk has shifted himself to be more allied with the right. He also proclaimed that he was taking over Twitter in order to free it from censorship (ie - Twitter is the place for free speech). Now it turns out that Musk doesn't really care about free speech. He just wants to control what the content of the speech is. This is an example that affirms the suspicions of the left: that the right's proclamations about speech are disingenuous. As I understand it, this is why people are calling him out.
  - throwawayfear 4y ago
    No, doxxing someone isn’t free speech anymore than saying “fire” in a crowded theater when there isn’t one is. Against the policies and rules. Doesn’t matter if it’s a CEO you dislike that is being doxxed. The people on the left are the ones being disingenuous.

LinuxBender 4y ago

Perhaps a work-around would be to have a landing page or redirector that when accessed by a bot just talks about how wonderful Twitter is but when a human accesses it you get redirected to a particular Mastodon instance. Is that doable in code? I know how to do this in Nginx and HAProxy ACL's. Do the Twitter crawlers use HTTP/2.0 yet? Google and assorted gaming/chat platform crawlers are still limited to HTTP/1.1.

cactusplant7374 4y ago
Just use a URL shortener. I tried it with TinyURL and it works. If they block that shortened URL just create another one and attach some random query vars so you don't get the same short link.

t0mas88 4y ago

I hope they took the Streisand effect into account... Tech users know Mastodon, others are now going to Google it based on mainstream media headlines. Big mistake.

phoe-krk 4y ago

Possible dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34010112 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34010112

proactivesvcs 4y ago

BBC journalists also seem to refuse to share links to Mastodon :-)

jtode 4y ago

What was that thing that that guy said... first they laugh at you...

norwalkbear 4y ago

ancapsfascists 4y ago
My dad, in his 70s and with zero interest in tech called me to point out Elon's meltdowns. Every tech person I know (except for right wing political folks who put politics first) also consider this extraordinary. I've literally met no one who thinks things are going fine.
dragontamer 4y ago
There is a real life bubble as well. If I know someone as a Muskovite, I'm not going to talk about Twitter or Musk in front of them. They're just not rational or worth interacting with. And I'm sure they think the same of me. People are tribal. If you wanna get things done or work professionally with people, you ignore politics and focus on work.
themitigating 4y ago
[flagged]
boomlinde 4y ago
You say that, based on anecdotal experience, but the move on Twitter's part to ban links to competitors after making a big fuzz about free speech is hard to frame as anything but desperate.
rchaud 4y ago
This sounds like it's from 6 months ago. No, people in the public sphere do not think Musk is doing OK with Twitter. They thought he was doing well when all they saw was him on stage taking credit for Tesla and SpaceX's engineering work. Now he is at a company where he is dictator supreme, his actions are far more public, and nothing has done more to tear away the illusion of his Midas touch. He's muttering about 'woke mind virus' due to boos at a Chappelle show where the audience were laughing at a half hour of LGBT jokes.
- 4y ago

Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago

Well, well, well. For years I've been talking about how bad this online censorship is [0][1][etc], but people here were pretty chill with what was happening. Turns out, when it started happening to their side, they all suddenly started behaving very hysterical. Who could have thought that social platform neutrality is a good thing?! [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28697128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28697128 [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25665232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25665232

themitigating 4y ago
"Their side?" Anyone who posts Mastadon links are being banned regardless of political affiliations. Also whether censorship is right or wrong is normally based on what is being censored not the person.
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
  > Anyone who posts Mastadon links are being banned regardless of political affiliations. This is simply not true, just search Mastodon.social links on Twitter via this link, and notice that posters are not banned: https://twitter.com/search?q=https%3A%2F%2Fmastodon.social&src=typed_query&f=live https://twitter.com/search?q=https%3A%2F%2Fmastodon.social&s... You could even search https://twitter.com/search?q=https%3A%2F%2Fmastodon.social%2F%40elonjet&src=typed_query&f=live https://twitter.com/search?q=https%3A%2F%2Fmastodon.social%2... , who post specifically about banned @elonjet account, and my first ten clicks on posters all happened to be non-suspended account. I don't think there is a need to check it further, your point is already invalidated.
  - notpachet 4y ago
    You're right about those users not being summarily banned. But it's still interesting what happens when you try to click one of those Mastodon links...
    - Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ChrisArchitect 4y ago

Plenty of discussion over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34010112 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34010112

bfrog 4y ago

Sounds like some awesome freedom of speech going on

intelVISA 4y ago
I need some librespeech