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Comment by peterkelly | Hacker News Reader

> But I can’t support any product that aggregates content for profit and isn’t built from the principle of compensating and protecting content creators from the get-go

This is literally what twitter is.

> No, I don’t like screenshots of my threads being reposted on Facebook or Tumblr. I don’t like my tweets appearing in ad-filled listicles that someone got paid to write.

If you're going to speak publicly, and say something that attracts interest, this is inevitable. As shitty as "twitter journalism" is, at least they're providing correct attribution to the original author. This is how online discussions work, and I think that a rule that says you're not allowed to quote other people would be harmful to society.

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> This is literally what twitter is.

Perhaps technically, but I think by "aggregate" she means by crawling, rather than places where people post themselves.

> I think that a rule that says you're not allowed to quote other people would be harmful to society.

Actual journalism, which just quotes parts or mentions the content in order to comment upon it (like you did), is very different from what she's criticizing, which is wholesale copying without any further purpose.

I'm not sure it's fair to say 'without any further purpose'. People aren't leveraging the functionality of a third party to show a thread of tweets for fun; they're doing this because the experience of reading a thread on Twitter isn't as good as it could be, and the (what feels like a) sudden proliferation of thread compilers is a testament to that. There's a definite value add I think, and while she may not like it, I don't see that going away anytime soon.

I think this perspective misses the major issue being criticised here and that is the fact that the thread compiler apps that compile threads without the author’s consent.

When you press “tweet” on Twitter you give Twitter consent to display your words on their website, unlike the compilers which will display it without consent

You don't just give Twitter consent to display your words on their website.

You grant [them] a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed). This license authorizes us to make your Content available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same.

https://twitter.com/en/tos Emphasis mine.

The permission you give Twitter also extends to thread compiler apps, to whatever extent Twitter feels like sublicensing.

Yeah the grant is liberal because someone would complain that, I don't know, twitter used a CDN or allows it to be displayed on 3rd party apps or or some other minor nitpicky complaint.

But yes, if you're writing on twitter, you are giving them permission to use your content.

> The permission you give Twitter also extends to thread compiler apps, to whatever extent Twitter feels like sublicensing.

But does Twitter sublicense? Why would they want to support usage of a third party service?

Twitter does sublicense, otherwise it would be impossible to use their API. I've looked at the developer agreement, and didn't see anything that would make these services against the rules.

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