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I mean, yeah, they could be. Except: 1) Doing that wouldn't be fairly described as "downloading Twitters database". 2) Given the scale of Twitter, there's no

by Lazare 4y ago

I mean, yeah, they could be. Except: 1) Doing that wouldn't be fairly described as "downloading Twitters database". 2) Given the scale of Twitter, there's no way that would be fairly described as downloading a "massive portion" of Twitter. 3) As you say, there's no reason they would be doing that. It's certainly not needed (or even helpful) for launching something like Substack Notes. 4) Just as a matter of how networking and modern cloud architectures work, it would be a bit surprising if the IP ranges that scraping requests were made from would be the same as the ones serving up content on Substack's frontend. It could happen I suppose, but...it'd be weird, even if you weren't trying to make the requests from unrelated IPs (which...you probably would try and do). 5) Elements of the block have nothing to do with IP addresses or domain names at all, eg, the block on results when even searching for the word "substack" (but hilariously, not when searching for common mispellings), or the block on searching for posts authored by Taibbi. 6) Substack has denied doing any such thing, and frankly, their credibility is currently significantly higher than Musk's. It's certainly possible Substack was doing something akin to scraping which via a game of telephone ended up as Musk's claim, but... I wouldn't bet money on it.

user3939382 4y ago
Agree 100%. There is a way to construe Musk’s statement into one that sort of makes technical sense, but only by creating a ridiculously unlikely scenario. Occam’s razor would say he’s trying to stifle competition and picked basically the worst conceivable strategy to do that. If I were Musk and wanted to stop Substack I’d try some kind of long-game embrace, extend, extinguish strategy and pretend to support them at this stage.
- Lazare 4y ago
  Yeah. Like, steelmanning the argument here: 1) Musk has come out in favour of shadowbanning, or "freedom of speach, not freedom of reach", as he once put it. Twitter isn't stopping you from tweeting a link to Substack, it's just sharply limiting the ways people might see that tweet, and trying to scare people away from following it if they do see it. Which in the most technical sense is arguably not blocking links to Substack. 2) It's possible Substack was scraping Twitter. Or much more likely, they've said they were using the Twitter API to embed tweets into newsletters. That's a perfectly allowed and legitimate use of the API, but it's possible some bug on Substack's side may have made the requests look odd or happen at an unusually high rate. Or alternatively, Twitter has made major changes to how the API works recently, and we know they have a skeleton crew these days. Perhaps (due to bugs or lack of resources) they incorrectly flagged Substack's API usage as malicious. If Musk saw a report that (rightly or wrongly) suggested Substack was misuing the API to embed Tweets, he might have assumed that they were using the API to scrape Twitter. 3) Taibbi isn't an employee of Substack, but he has a Substack and paying subscribers, and thus has a very slight financial interest in the health of the Substack platform. (Only slight because Substack makes it quite easy to migrate off their platform, taking your paying subscribers with you.) But that's still more financial interest than people who aren't Musk have in the health of Twitter. So if you squint, Taibbi could almost be seen as biased against Twitter in any conflict with Substack? So sure, I can almost find a way to imagine Musk's claims as "technically true but intentionally misleading", "almost certainly false but perhaps Musk wasn't intentionally lying", and "Musk had to know he was lying, but perhaps he was morally very slightly correct". But boy do you have to work hard to force his statements into even that ambiguously positive a frame. :) > Occam’s razor would say he’s trying to stifle competition and picked basically the worst conceivable strategy to do that. Totally agreed. There's been a flurry of Twitter competitors, but Musk's actions so far have catapulted Substack's Notes into the forefront, which is hilarious for a product from comparatively tiny company that hasn't even launched yet. Spoutible and Post.news have to consider this little spat an existential disaster for them.

by Lazare 4y ago

user3939382 4y ago

Agree 100%. There is a way to construe Musk’s statement into one that sort of makes technical sense, but only by creating a ridiculously unlikely scenario. Occam’s razor would say he’s trying to stifle competition and picked basically the worst conceivable strategy to do that. If I were Musk and wanted to stop Substack I’d try some kind of long-game embrace, extend, extinguish strategy and pretend to support them at this stage.

Lazare 4y ago
Yeah. Like, steelmanning the argument here: 1) Musk has come out in favour of shadowbanning, or "freedom of speach, not freedom of reach", as he once put it. Twitter isn't stopping you from tweeting a link to Substack, it's just sharply limiting the ways people might see that tweet, and trying to scare people away from following it if they do see it. Which in the most technical sense is arguably not blocking links to Substack. 2) It's possible Substack was scraping Twitter. Or much more likely, they've said they were using the Twitter API to embed tweets into newsletters. That's a perfectly allowed and legitimate use of the API, but it's possible some bug on Substack's side may have made the requests look odd or happen at an unusually high rate. Or alternatively, Twitter has made major changes to how the API works recently, and we know they have a skeleton crew these days. Perhaps (due to bugs or lack of resources) they incorrectly flagged Substack's API usage as malicious. If Musk saw a report that (rightly or wrongly) suggested Substack was misuing the API to embed Tweets, he might have assumed that they were using the API to scrape Twitter. 3) Taibbi isn't an employee of Substack, but he has a Substack and paying subscribers, and thus has a very slight financial interest in the health of the Substack platform. (Only slight because Substack makes it quite easy to migrate off their platform, taking your paying subscribers with you.) But that's still more financial interest than people who aren't Musk have in the health of Twitter. So if you squint, Taibbi could almost be seen as biased against Twitter in any conflict with Substack? So sure, I can almost find a way to imagine Musk's claims as "technically true but intentionally misleading", "almost certainly false but perhaps Musk wasn't intentionally lying", and "Musk had to know he was lying, but perhaps he was morally very slightly correct". But boy do you have to work hard to force his statements into even that ambiguously positive a frame. :) > Occam’s razor would say he’s trying to stifle competition and picked basically the worst conceivable strategy to do that. Totally agreed. There's been a flurry of Twitter competitors, but Musk's actions so far have catapulted Substack's Notes into the forefront, which is hilarious for a product from comparatively tiny company that hasn't even launched yet. Spoutible and Post.news have to consider this little spat an existential disaster for them.