In other hostile takeover Tweets...
-
@remi I have a twit account. Don't think I've ever posted... I signed up when I was using CalTrain to commute to San Francisco. It was the most reliable way to get updates on the trains. (Oh, my train is late because someone decided that the train crossing arms didn't mean anything so now their car is smeared down several hundred yards of track)
-
@remi well, there’s a thing, I don’t think His Muskiness actually said it was going to be off limits to guests. He explicitly called out the rate limiting, but the no-guest view could easily be a side effect of whatever bullshit broke everything that was claimed to be rate limiting.
-
@remi said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@Zecc said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
Do these limitations apply to embeds?
It doesn't seem to be the case, no, and indeed I have no idea how that can work.
For example, take this article (in French and ignore the topic which would be more suited to the but it's in French so you'll be doing so anyway). It ends with a couple of tweets that perfectly embed (at least for me?), but clicking them gives me the Twitter "something's wrong" error.
Never mind that. I'm seeing this in their GDPR popup:
I've always wanted to manage my own team of parkour practitioners.
-
@Zecc said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
Never mind that. I'm seeing this in their GDPR popup:
I think you mean "fenêtre contextuelle RGPD"
I never noticed, but then again they follow the law and have a reasonably prominent (i.e. not harder to find than the "accept" button) "reject all" button, so I never go any further than that.
-
@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
He explicitly called out the rate limiting, but the no-guest view could easily be a side effect of whatever bullshit broke everything that was claimed to be rate limiting.
Since there's a limit for newly-registered users, I'd guess that having non-registered users be unable to read anything is intentional. Plus, there's always the whole question of one would enforce a limit on somebody without an account. Limits per IP? Not great for carrier-grade NAT. Massive fingerprinting? Problems + GDPR might have a word (not that Musk would care in the first instance). Cookies? Bypassed so easily, it's essentially meaningless.
Question is if they show tweets for e.g. Google bot...
-
Surprisingly, the "can't read tweets without an account" feature is also enforced for tweets from His Highness Elon Musk. I assume that's an oversight that will be fixed soon.
-
@cvi said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
I'd guess that having non-registered users be unable to read anything is intentional.
Insofar as anything Elon does is "intentional" anyway...
-
@cvi said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
Since there's a limit for newly-registered users, I'd guess that having non-registered users be unable to read anything is intentional.
I think so too, especially if (part of) the reason for the limit is to avoid bots slurping content.
Then again, as @Arantor said, it's only as much as anything does is intentional... or maybe "thought out" is a better term here.
From a business perspective, the limits on registered users may make sense, especially as there are several tiers based on what you pay (and it would be easy to add more tiers/prices). Classical business model here, nothing wrong with that. And it also ties in with Elon's stated goal to reduce dependency on ads as revenue would be generated from something else (users!).
The problem is that indeed that model only works if unregistered users can't access anything, and this therefore means that people are ready to make the initial effort of creating a (free) account. This works if you have absolutely compelling content that people want to see but this isn't really Twitter's case and their format makes that hard to ever happen (something like Netflix can commission original works but Twitter??).
This might work due to the network effect ("everybody's on this social network, so I must be there as well") but for one thing it's not obvious that Twitter actually has reached that point (like Facebook did at some point), and for another this is a state that might change very quickly (Facebook was ubiquitous at one point, now it's a bit easier to avoid it).
My impression of Twitter is that most people get hooked through the unregistered access (with the creation of accounts driven by "oh this account always posts funny stuff, I'd like an easy way to follow it" or "I want to reply to this tweet"). Without that, I don't see how Twitter can realistically hope to attract a significant number of new users.
-
@remi The problem is that if the content is accessible to the unregistered, then many don't feel any need to register, but if the content is not accessible to the unregistered, then they won't even know there might be a point in registering.
Either way it seems to be accessible now.
-
@Bulb said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
if the content is accessible to the unregistered, then many don't feel any need to register
Unless they find a way to rate-limit unregistered users, but this is again something where the very nature of Twitter comes to bite them. For example something like Netflix (or even Youtube) can trivially limit users to e.g. only the first X minutes of a video (like most newspapers do nowadays), which hopefully is enough to hook you and get you to create an account. But with Twitter, there isn't really a meaningful way to cut short messages that by nature are expected to be short (even if the tweet limit is now larger). So yeah, it's a problem.
Either way it seems to be accessible now.
it seems to be fixed if you go directly to a given tweet (e.g. from the example I gave in the article above), but you can't go anywhere from there. You see the tweet itself but not any responses, context etc. and going to the author's feed or anything else fails.
Though in some cases it correctly fails by showing the login dialog (so you know that you're being limited by not being logged in), but in some other it's still "an error happened."
In other words, sounds like a hack was added to the previous hacks.
-
@remi Ah, yeah, I only go to twitter when someone links me to it, so …
-
@remi said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@Bulb said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
if the content is accessible to the unregistered, then many don't feel any need to register
Unless they find a way to rate-limit unregistered users, but this is again something where the very nature of Twitter comes to bite them. For example something like Netflix (or even Youtube) can trivially limit users to e.g. only the first X minutes of a video (like most newspapers do nowadays), which hopefully is enough to hook you and get you to create an account. But with Twitter, there isn't really a meaningful way to cut short messages that by nature are expected to be short (even if the tweet limit is now larger). So yeah, it's a problem.
I have an idea: they could do the opposite. Make the messages LONGER for unregistered users! "TLDR? Register now!"
Implementation is trivial today with ChatGPT.Hmm, this looks like a billion dollar idea. Maybe I should get my lawyer on standby.
-
@Kamil-Podlesak said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
Implementation is trivial today with ChatGPT.
Or they can just read my posts.
Hmm, this looks like a billion dollar idea. Maybe I should get my lawyer on standby.
Definitely. I'm going to revive @Lorne-Kates's campaign. "Fuck you, give me money for shorter posts."
-
@remi said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
"Fuck you, give me money for shorter posts."
All of my Twitter posts are zero words. Give me infinite money.
-
@HardwareGeek no no no no no, you got it wrong. First you have to write Wall'O'Texts and then you can ask for money to make shorter posts.
I'm on step 1, we've just revealed step 2. So now it's step 3 (???) and then, , money!
-
@HardwareGeek said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@remi said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
"Fuck you, give me money for shorter posts."
All of my Twitter posts are zero words. Give me infinite money.
None of my twitter posts are shorter than War and Peace
-
@cvi said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
Bypassed so easily, it's essentially meaningless.
For us, sure. For a "normal" user?
-
@dcon Why are you using the word "normal" in a discussion about Twitter users?
-
@HardwareGeek said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@dcon Why are you using the word "normal" in a discussion about Twitter users?
That just further proves my point.
-
So I went to look at the new Twitter rival, Threads.
I go to threads.net expecting to see a sign up screen and it’s just hipster animation and a QR code.
That’s kind of a “big no from me” if there isn’t a web interface for it…
-
@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
So I went to look at the new Twitter rival, Threads.
I go to threads.net expecting to see a sign up screen and it’s just hipster animation and a QR code.
That’s kind of a “big no from me” if there isn’t a web interface for it…
What is this, a WebGL demo site?
No, it's just a rotating PNG. And to rotate that PNG, you need a bajillion scripts and nested div soup.Anyway, it's a
FacebookMeta site, so that's the big no. Fuck off, Sugarberg.
-
@topspin said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
So I went to look at the new Twitter rival, Threads.
I go to threads.net expecting to see a sign up screen and it’s just hipster animation and a QR code.
That’s kind of a “big no from me” if there isn’t a web interface for it…
What is this, a WebGL demo site?
No, it's just a rotating PNG. And to rotate that PNG, you need a bajillion scripts and nested div soup.Anyway, it's a
FacebookMeta site, so that's the big no. Fuck off, Sugarberg.Seems like it's a fractal no.
-
@Carnage said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@topspin said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
So I went to look at the new Twitter rival, Threads.
I go to threads.net expecting to see a sign up screen and it’s just hipster animation and a QR code.
That’s kind of a “big no from me” if there isn’t a web interface for it…
What is this, a WebGL demo site?
No, it's just a rotating PNG. And to rotate that PNG, you need a bajillion scripts and nested div soup.Anyway, it's a
FacebookMeta site, so that's the big no. Fuck off, Sugarberg.Seems like it's a fractal no.
Fractal of bad design?
-
@topspin looks like React, a Meta product.
It’s also a bit fancier than just a rotated PNG.
As for “ew, no”…. Folks I follow on Twitter are going there so, I guess that’s where I’m going if I want to keep following/being part of the conversation.
-
@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
I guess that’s where I’m going if I want to keep following/being part of the conversation.
We are not enough for you?
-
@MrL said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
I guess that’s where I’m going if I want to keep following/being part of the conversation.
We are not enough for you?
Some of the people I chat with/follow on the Tweeter would not like it here.
-
@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@MrL said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
I guess that’s where I’m going if I want to keep following/being part of the conversation.
We are not enough for you?
Some of the people I chat with/follow on the Tweeter would not like it here.
Nonsense, everyone likes it here.
-
...as everyone who doesn't ran away screaming in horror a long time ago.
-
@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
It’s also a bit fancier than just a rotated PNG.
Yes, it's also got a cookie popup. I forgot to mention that.
So it's basically an empty site with an animated background and a cookie banner. From facebook. An empty site that spies on you.Exactly what I've been looking for!
Folks I follow on Twitter are going there
To do what, look at the animated background?
-
@topspin said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
To do what, look at the animated background?
One could argue that all of social media is just looking at animated background.
-
@topspin I didn’t realise that it’s app-only for the time being and there are no immediate plans to have a desktop presence.
-
One day old and already the most retarded option available:
-
@topspin The headline is a bit misleading.
Your Threads account is your Instagram account. The only way to delete your Threads account is to delete your Instagram account, because they're the same thing. Meta isn't doing something automatically behind your back (well, they are, but this isn't one of them); you are doing it yourself, by your own action.Whether they make the ramifications of your action sufficiently clear and whether the two services should be so tightly coupled in the first place are another matter.
-
@HardwareGeek true, it's not quite as bad as the headline suggests, but it is a headline.
Doing it this way is still stupid. Considering how much anti-trust and privacy stuff they had to fight to throw all their Facebook / Instagram / Whatsapp stuff together, it is understandable from a business perspective to just do it this way to begin with, but it's very much not desirable by the user.
As someone on slashdot commented:
at least they are using Instagram for this. It was a disaster when they used Facebook for Oculus and released the Quest 2 right around election time and mass-banned a lot of Facebook accounts.
(Yes, yes, territory. Just focus on the user hostility aspects instead of politics.)
-
@HardwareGeek said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@topspin The headline is a bit misleading.
Your Threads account is your Instagram account. The only way to delete your Threads account is to delete your Instagram account, because they're the same thing.I saw this article yesterday and it reminded me that I have an Instagram account that I set up long ago and never used. So, I deleted it.
Something good finally came from reading Slashdot.
-
I’m a bit weird, I like to use the browser versions of things on my iPad rather than dedicated apps.
Imagine my surprise when I just went to Twitter.com and got the prompt for storage from Safari - “Would you like to let twitter.com use 1.1GB of storage?”
Like, uh, what the fuck have they done where shoving a GB to localStorage in any way makes sense?
-
@Arantor not even the app uses that much.
-
@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
what the fuck have they done where shoving a GB to localStorage in any way makes sense?
It's Twitter. They do plenty of things that make zero sense. Like retrying failed queries every 100 ms, in a loop, forever.
-
@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
“Would you like to let twitter.com use 1.1GB of storage?”
-
@topspin said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
To do what, look at the animated background?
It's like mining shitcoin, except here you get something out of it (an animated background, yay!).
-
@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
Like, uh, what the fuck have they done where shoving a GB to localStorage in any way makes sense?
It's to keep a log of the failed requests.
Not sure why it's just 1.1GB, though.
-
@cvi said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@Arantor said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
Like, uh, what the fuck have they done where shoving a GB to localStorage in any way makes sense?
It's to keep a log of the failed requests.
Not sure why it's just 1.1GB, though.
Apple standards only let them keep 30 minutes worth of log data.
-
@DogsB said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@dkf said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@remi said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
But on the third hand (),
The gripping hand!
The Mote in God's Eye (by Niven and Pournelle) was a fun book.
You make that joke too often. I will read the book eventually though.
that was one of my favorite books ever
-
@Gern_Blaanston said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
I saw this article yesterday and it reminded me that I have an Instagram account that I set up long ago and never used. So, I deleted it.
I created one mostly to stop people from registering accounts with my <single name><single digit number>@gmail.com email, cause verifying email is too hard for those people apparently
one time I got tired of trolling and then deleting these idiots accounts
-
Threads is freely available and is linked to Instagram, with new sign-ups needing an Instagram account to log in. They are then able to transfer over the accounts they follow on Instagram to their Threads account, in a move that has helped boost the size of the new social network.
A one click sign up from our biggest money maker with north of 200 million people has resulted in exploded growth!
New accounts! Tell us about new accounts!
-
-
@DogsB said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
Its Facebook! I’m surprised they’re not asking you for passports and social security numbers.
I'm surprised if they don't already know it.
-
@DogsB said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
Its Facebook! I’m surprised they’re not asking you for passports and social security numbers.
Joke's on them. I don't know my SSN and my passport has expired!
-
@DogsB said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
New accounts! Tell us about new accounts!
I'm surprised they didn't just auto-create Threads accounts for all the existing Instagram accounts since they're linked anyways.
-
@dcon said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
@DogsB said in In other hostile takeover Tweets...:
New accounts! Tell us about new accounts!
I'm surprised they didn't just auto-create Threads accounts for all the existing Instagram accounts since they're linked anyways.
Probably only doing the account creation when the user logs in. The principle applies.