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I tried using nitter the other day to view my utility company's tweets and got that message on three different instances before finally giving up. Twitter does

I tried using nitter the other day to view my utility company's tweets and got that message on three different instances before finally giving up. Twitter doesn't work any more without an account, and it's high time we in the tech world led out in refusing to participate in a platform that deliberately locks its content up behind an auth wall. Twitter links don't belong on HN, convoluted sometimes-functional workarounds notwithstanding.

dumbo-octopus 2y ago
You can view an accounts tweets without logging in.
- lolinder 2y ago
  That's new as of the last 48 hours, and threads still don't work. When they restore threading I'll stop flagging Twitter links.
  - dumbo-octopus 2y ago
    No, it’s not. I’ve been viewing tweets on profiles for months now, all without an account. It is accurate that threads don’t work. I don’t particularly care about follow ups, if it was important they should have said it at the top level. People making a bunch of lede burying 1/N threads and expecting the masses to wade through Twitter’s molasses UI to get to the damn point is why I left.
    - lolinder 2y ago
      > I’ve been viewing tweets on profiles for months now, all without an account. And I tried to visit my utility's tweets Friday night and got a sign in page. And I just tried again and I once again can't see profiles. Maybe it's just inconsistent in enforcing the login on profiles?
      - dumbo-octopus 2y ago
        Looks like it does vary from account to account. All the famous people I’ve seen are open access, as is my electric company. My water company however is closed.
        lolinder 2y ago
        That makes sense in a very X kind of way.
- EGreg 2y ago
  What’s the URL to see tweets on a specific hashtag?
  - andsoitis 2y ago
    > What’s the URL to see tweets on a specific hashtag? Example: https://x.com/hashtag/earthquake https://x.com/hashtag/earthquake
    - EGreg 2y ago
      thanks! it requires a login.
EGreg 2y ago
And what alternatives do you suggest? HN rightly complains about proprietary closed platforms, and enshittification. Here is an open source alternative to Twitter and Facebook: https://github.com/Qbix/Platform https://github.com/Qbix/Platform
- lolinder 2y ago
  Mastodon links still work just fine.
- lostlogin 2y ago
  > And what alternatives do you suggest? The utility company could post on their own website.
wannacboatmovie 2y ago
> it's high time we in the tech world led out in refusing to participate in a platform that deliberately locks its content up behind an auth wall. Maybe the tech world should stop using bots to rape and pillage user-generated content without payment to feed their AI models no one asked for. Which is what caused X to install the auth wall in the first place.
toomuchtodo 2y ago
Have you asked your utility to post status updates on Mastodon? Explain the challenges of consuming their updates on X, and why their customer base would be better served elsewhere. If not, you should do so. If they need someone to manage the instance for them, we can find them a commercial provider. Failing that, have them create a Threads account with federation enabled. Default to action, be the change. The eyeballs go where the content is; tell the content where to go. Edit: @edflsafoiewq Why are we ignoring their uses cases? If they feel the need (outages, relevant customer information) and have the desire to have the mechanism in addition to or in lieu of email, paper mail, and/or SMS, enable them. The cost is very low to do so.
- wannacboatmovie 2y ago
  Normies don't understand Mastodon, which incidentally make up 99.999% of a utility company's customers.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    If Mastodon is too much of a lift in the near term (social network effects are admittedly hard and humans are tricky), Threads is an option for a Fediverse-compatible managed solution. Not hard to get the top 10 folks over to threads (except a few folks who probably wouldn't migrate): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-followed_Twitter_accounts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-followed_Twitter_... (https://www.threads.net/@barackobama https://www.threads.net/@barackobama, https://www.threads.net/@whitehouse https://www.threads.net/@whitehouse, https://www.threads.net/@potus https://www.threads.net/@potus demonstrate popular accounts will make the effort) Fediverse posting is then a checkbox. Drag the normies. Popular social management tools already support Threads as well (Buffer comes to mind). https://engineering.fb.com/2024/03/21/networking-traffic/threads-has-entered-the-fediverse/ https://engineering.fb.com/2024/03/21/networking-traffic/thr... https://help.instagram.com/760878905943039 https://help.instagram.com/760878905943039 https://buffer.com/threads https://buffer.com/threads (think in systems)
  - CalRobert 2y ago
    That might be why I like mastodon. May we never suffer an eternal September.

dumbo-octopus 2y ago

You can view an accounts tweets without logging in.

lolinder 2y ago
That's new as of the last 48 hours, and threads still don't work. When they restore threading I'll stop flagging Twitter links.
- dumbo-octopus 2y ago
  No, it’s not. I’ve been viewing tweets on profiles for months now, all without an account. It is accurate that threads don’t work. I don’t particularly care about follow ups, if it was important they should have said it at the top level. People making a bunch of lede burying 1/N threads and expecting the masses to wade through Twitter’s molasses UI to get to the damn point is why I left.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    > I’ve been viewing tweets on profiles for months now, all without an account. And I tried to visit my utility's tweets Friday night and got a sign in page. And I just tried again and I once again can't see profiles. Maybe it's just inconsistent in enforcing the login on profiles?
    - dumbo-octopus 2y ago
      Looks like it does vary from account to account. All the famous people I’ve seen are open access, as is my electric company. My water company however is closed.
      - lolinder 2y ago
        That makes sense in a very X kind of way.
EGreg 2y ago
What’s the URL to see tweets on a specific hashtag?
- andsoitis 2y ago
  > What’s the URL to see tweets on a specific hashtag? Example: https://x.com/hashtag/earthquake https://x.com/hashtag/earthquake
  - EGreg 2y ago
    thanks! it requires a login.

EGreg 2y ago

And what alternatives do you suggest? HN rightly complains about proprietary closed platforms, and enshittification. Here is an open source alternative to Twitter and Facebook: https://github.com/Qbix/Platform https://github.com/Qbix/Platform

lolinder 2y ago
Mastodon links still work just fine.
lostlogin 2y ago
> And what alternatives do you suggest? The utility company could post on their own website.

wannacboatmovie 2y ago

> it's high time we in the tech world led out in refusing to participate in a platform that deliberately locks its content up behind an auth wall. Maybe the tech world should stop using bots to rape and pillage user-generated content without payment to feed their AI models no one asked for. Which is what caused X to install the auth wall in the first place.

toomuchtodo 2y ago

Have you asked your utility to post status updates on Mastodon? Explain the challenges of consuming their updates on X, and why their customer base would be better served elsewhere. If not, you should do so. If they need someone to manage the instance for them, we can find them a commercial provider. Failing that, have them create a Threads account with federation enabled. Default to action, be the change. The eyeballs go where the content is; tell the content where to go. Edit: @edflsafoiewq Why are we ignoring their uses cases? If they feel the need (outages, relevant customer information) and have the desire to have the mechanism in addition to or in lieu of email, paper mail, and/or SMS, enable them. The cost is very low to do so.

wannacboatmovie 2y ago
Normies don't understand Mastodon, which incidentally make up 99.999% of a utility company's customers.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  If Mastodon is too much of a lift in the near term (social network effects are admittedly hard and humans are tricky), Threads is an option for a Fediverse-compatible managed solution. Not hard to get the top 10 folks over to threads (except a few folks who probably wouldn't migrate): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-followed_Twitter_accounts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-followed_Twitter_... (https://www.threads.net/@barackobama https://www.threads.net/@barackobama, https://www.threads.net/@whitehouse https://www.threads.net/@whitehouse, https://www.threads.net/@potus https://www.threads.net/@potus demonstrate popular accounts will make the effort) Fediverse posting is then a checkbox. Drag the normies. Popular social management tools already support Threads as well (Buffer comes to mind). https://engineering.fb.com/2024/03/21/networking-traffic/threads-has-entered-the-fediverse/ https://engineering.fb.com/2024/03/21/networking-traffic/thr... https://help.instagram.com/760878905943039 https://help.instagram.com/760878905943039 https://buffer.com/threads https://buffer.com/threads (think in systems)
- CalRobert 2y ago
  That might be why I like mastodon. May we never suffer an eternal September.