Some Indian Twitter users are leaving for Mastodon
bbc.com
bbc.com
I've been opening tickets for a week but they're all automatically closed. This gets me thinking, does it even matter if a SaaS product has a twitter handle for marketing and support?
Pretty much every single service immediately bans me upon account creation if I don’t hand over my mobile number. Instagram banned me for “violating terms of service” before I had even chosen a username - before I had posted even a single thing. Makes me wonder if signing up for a service was in their list of violations itself? I mean, c’mon. It’s pretty much a ploy to gather mobile numbers under the garb of security or spam.
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2019/03/05/facebook-critici...
These cos. copyright all user created information. So they want to make money from it and want credit for good content. However, want to reduce liabilities that arise from content created by malicious actors. Can't have the cake and eat it too.
With bots, you can really be a nuisance with a little bit of effort.
http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.co...
TL;DR it is effective.
Privacy and preventing misinformation bot armies are not conflicting goals, but unfortunately implementations achieving one hurts the other. Only way to prevent fake accounts is to have some kind of proxy for real identity confirmation. Unfortunately a phone number verification is currently only such global scalable method.
Most likely you used an VPN IP address, privacy plugins or similar for the sign up that were flagged before as the source of problems.
I wouldn't mind sharing my phone number if it were for my protection, but it's not -- it's a risk for me, and they ask me to do it for their platform's protection. More specifically, for the protection of that platform's profits. I honestly don't mind bots, it's advertisers and politicians who do, and they're the ones keeping the whole thing profitable.
I'd rather sacrifice the privacy for the general good experience of my Twitter service.
Edit: plus, I'm not sure how that invalidates my concern. The only thing better than a data leak with personal information is a data leak with personal information that's definitely true, up-to-date and complete -- and the only datapoints of dubious values belong to bots, making them easy to cross off your list.
It is very limited because phone numbers are gatekeeped by massive telcos. VoIP numbers are sold in blocks and are easily detected by phone verification systems.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/04/twitter-bots-were-more-activ...
Not getting harrassed to suicide
https://www.worldofbuzz.com/you-want-to-get-naked-so-bad-huh...
Never again twattrr
Since then I tried to delete the account, but on any attempts to do so MS tries to get my phone number, which I don't want to provide. Their support is completely inexistent, because you would need to log in of course.
I would like to send them a cease and desists letter against blocking account deletion attempts. I am not sure, but I believe their conduct to be illegal in the EU where I am located. Probably would just cost me money, but they would deserve it.
The only other alternative to stop spam is micropayments (at a similar cost to a SIM card). I would actually like to see that as an option instead of providing my mobile number--preferably using Bitcoin because my credit card number is even more confidential than my phone number.
You’re right about it being a lot more annoying though.
For wired connections, isn't banning the customer-sized subnet about the same in terms of effectiveness ?
That might be what it originally started out as, but by now many platforms seem to think of it as just more personal data they can monetize [0] [1].
[0] https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/08/twitter-admits-it-used-two...
[1] https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/28/facebook-two-factor-phon...
I tried to appeal, but it wanted a real photo of me holding some handwritten information. No thanks, I don’t really need an abusive and flakey platform to have my real photo. I abandoned Instagram then. It’s one of the most needlessly aggressive platforms that deactivates accounts for no good reason and bullies people into giving their photo and/or phone number. I hope Instagram dies quickly because of this stupid aggressiveness.
More people should start using decentralized platforms where one may have a better chance of expressing oneself (I’m talking about regular, non-spam speech). All these centralized platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are big time bullies.
With ActivityPub, the organization behind your SaaS product can be hosting their own organizational instance of Mastodon (or whatever fediverse software they choose to run) and interact directly on the platform, bypassing Twitter.
Effectively this is a lot like hosting your own SMTP services (or paying someone to do that for you!)
This can smooth the transition for your audience that’s not ready to move yet.
[1] https://crossposter.masto.donte.com.br/
Example handles from other side: check this tweet (this is a pro govt handle) - https://twitter.com/modifiedvikas/status/1177099258534588416
https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1192384055884447744
...or is there a claim somewhere in here that the unhappy right wing accounts just leave twitter for Mastodon without complaining and hence all that anyone, including the BBC, seems to highlight is the left leaning accounts making a noise ? Where are the unhappy right wingers in that thread ?
Also the RW twitter is not given the required exposure by media outlets in India (forget about the Western outlets) when they have their protests as well. This happens with many cases - e.g. Happened after killing of Kamlesh Tiwari. Many people celebrated the murder and were rightly condemned by the RW twitter group but Indian media did not highlight that.
Come on, use Occam's razor.
The report said most of the blocked content was critical of the government's recent move to strip Indian-administered Kashmir of its semi-autonomous status, and were made after requests by the government itself.
I believe that they've missed an important detail here. There was a massive misinformation campaign against India on Twitter in the aftermath of abrogating article 370. Many of these tweets originated from Pakistani handles[1][2]. They have even started impersonating top Indian military officials on Twitter[3]. And it seems that they are not just stopping with Kashmir. The propaganda campaign even covers Rafale and Tamil Nadu[4][5].
I do not condone banning accounts that are critical of the Government. However, propaganda over sensitive topics should be stopped by all means.
1. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/crpf-j-k-police-kashmi...
2. https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/a-third-of-mislea...
3. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/pakistan-s-fake-news-p...
4. https://www.news18.com/news/india/as-rafale-adds-to-firepowe...
5. https://qz.com/india/1727752/pakistan-bots-helped-gobackmodi...
"Twitter bans RT and Sputnik ads amid election interference fears"
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45266713
And I'm not sure why you think they wouldn't, because they're British, not American or Russian.
Like disconnecting the internet entirely?
The rub is: who decides that it's fake propaganda and misinformation? The Government?
1: https://www.cnet.com/news/whatsapp-rumors-reportedly-led-to-...
However, as a Twitter user for the last decade, the platform seems to be decaying. Either no on is really on it much any longer, or they've squelched my account severely.
The fun seemed to depart after late 2016, as though something happened which dismayed The Powers That Be.
It's not that they CAN'T do anything about it, the problem is that they WON'T.
I find I get a vastly different experience on those apps to the official site - on the website, tweets from various friends aren't being shown at all, and replies are being re-ordered. It's as if the Twitter site is re-ordering things to maximize "engagement" (ie outrage). The third party apps still show things by chronological order, don't show tweets that others like/heart, making for a much better experience.
also, list support is a lot better on the official app (and i use a lot of lists so i don't clutter my main timeline with random stuff).
There have also been conspiracy theories that Twitter is purposely not verifying some people because of their caste.
I suspect that may be playing some role in this as well.
Now, you would say, I could run my own pod, but they could still block me from following anyone on their pods just because of the people I'm following or because they have white lists of pods allowed to follow people. This makes the whole experience even more restricting than twitter and creates insular bubbles of opinions where you are only allowed to follow people you already agree with (boring).
I guess, a truly decentralized solution would be something like a blockchain where they will not be able to prevent anyone from following anyone when using different clients. Haven't seen any working solution yet.
Fundamentally, the freedom-of-speech argument of "everyone must read what I have to say" is a tired one that cannot and will not ever happen: You can't force everyone else to read your post. Not on a blockchain, not on a federated system. Blockchain may mean they have to download your content, but their client filter will always be available to never have to see another person's content even if force-downloaded. Clockwork Orange type solution is the only way to be sure a human puts their eyeballs on specific content.
In general, most admins are not proactively blocking federated single instance users unless reports come in, in which case you probably did something to someone on that instance. Not everyone is there to burst their bubble, but craft it, and depending what they want, you or I might not make the cut. Oh well.
Finally, if an anti-censorship platform where everyone must download one's speech (under certain conditions) is truly what you want, go to FreeNet. Even there, no one is required to read another's content.
The entire post is about who they are allowed to follow, nothing to do with what they say. It's not about personal bubbles either.
Can download, not must download.
Once that person begins opening their mouth, is when federated admins begin blacklisting (if required, at their discretion), preventing new follows and undo-ing existing follows. That's how they build, curate, and maintain their communities much like any other BBS, forum, or sub-reddit.
Most people appreciate a baseline standard employed by their admin so they themselves don't have to wade through porn, gore, and hateful content.
Believe me, this debate isn't new, Gab moving to ActivityPub brought the same cries of "we're being censored by admins, let the people decide for themselves". The admins, of course, laughed and said "my community members can leave or create a second account elsewhere on this open platform if they want that content". To no one's surprise, the non-Gab part of the Fediverse did not shrink.
Edit: And I've always explained to folks... advocate for single-user instances if concerned about admin decisions! Then the digital literate group of self-policing admin-users, grows! But then again, understand not everyone is on the internet to have to wade through porn, gore, and hateful content and wants to make that decision for themselves.
Edit2: Admin decisions are also transparent on Mastodon. The instance I am on for example lists decisions here: https://mastodon.technology/about/more
That's the issue here, if you can't open your mouth then you might as well stay on twitter.
Also, your mastodon.technology rules clearly state it will not federate with instances it politically disagrees with but it will also not federate with instances that federate with instances it politically disagrees with. Meaning, if your pod X blocks me from following someone from pod Y, forcing me to run my own pod, then I won't be able to follow my friends back on your pod X. Sounds like a broken system to me. If person A consents to person B following them, no admin should be able to block them from doing so or forcing both of them to run their own instance (most people are not tech savvy enough and will have their voice muted, not super fair, specially for disadvantaged people).
I understand that only something like a truly decentralized and distributed system such as a blockchain would allow for something like that.
It sounds broken because that's not how it works.
When you spin up your own instance, no existing deny list anywhere on the Fediverse has your instance listed, unless you're buying a previously-used domain (which then has other, bigger problems, than this). So you can follow instance X, Y, Z, A, T, B, C, G, whoever your heart pleases. They aren't actively policing single-user instances, only larger ones, for the double-federation rule. A new clean slate, until you open your mouth and people begin curating their communities again. But this then moves the conversation from a can follow to can listen scenario. The latter of which, my first response to you was pretty thorough.
If I understand it right the only reason you are continuously infatuated with blockchain is because there is a belief that everyone downloading this "centralized" ledger of data equates to everyone having an equally discoverable voice and then an equitable chance of readers viewing a piece of content.
That's simply not true. Whatever client can be used to view this blockchain of "dialogue" can come with preset filters that ensures that, even if the data is downloaded on-chain, no human will ever see it. The chain could be lengthened with spam, burying your messages to the far past, or kilometers worth of up-scrolling. You've got the data on the machine but no eyeballs viewing it. There is no inherent value to content that is never viewed; if you believe otherwise, I have ad space on my blog to sell you!
Same outcome as the Fediverse, but way more wasteful, because there's way more unnecessary bandwidth on the network being used, as data that is never going to be read gets passed around. The protocol could be forked where your censorship-enemies agree up to a certain point on a chain is valid, and then only download the preceding merkle node content they care about, ensuring your previous content never gets propagated in the first place. In addition to the other kinds of blockchain attacks.
This is why I will keep bringing up FreeNet. If you're concerned about censorship and speech on the internet, blockchain is just a tool for a specific kind of problem (and you've yet to convince me this is that kind of problem); FreeNet is a multi-decade old network designed, and with the papers proving, to be robust against censorship attacks at multiple levels (adversarial content, network, node).
The Fediverse is a decentralized way to run communities like BBSs and Forums and SubReddits and PatreonPages that all natively interact with each other as if one data graph, but multiple different applications sharing and modifying that data graph.
Edit:
> That's the issue here, if you can't open your mouth then you might as well stay on twitter.
Is it really though[0]? Why Twitter? To me, that's a really funny suggestion! They have the sole authority to kick you off their entire network. No one can do that on the Fediverse. Rather than make a step towards a beneficial direction you see, you'd rather stick in an ugly quagmire? No offense intended, but after watching after some stubborn kids, this sounds exactly like one of their "I'd rather be stubborn and punish myself than have a middle compromise because I cannot get exactly what I want".
I do mean this sincerely: no matter where you go, I hope you feel safe to speak your mind.
[0] I ask because that means this is a freedom of speech issue, AKA what my first reply was all about. And even more validates my concerns you have some goalpost shifting going on. But the middling responses were trying to convince me it wasn't this issue, but one merely about following (aka receiving, not sending, content).
Because Twitter has a great network effect, everyone's on it and you can follow anyone you want, make new connections, advertise your projects or products, get your voice heard, follow people you like etc.
Nobody is on the fediverse, why would I get there? The only reason I would go there is to get complete freedom of speech, anything else, Twitter already does it and better thanks to network effects. If you are going to censor political speech you don't like just like twitter, then I see no point in switching.
With the blockchain, you could be banned from a client, but the distributed ledger would still allow you to follow people using other clients. Big difference. I agree that I haven't seen any working solution using a blockchain so far, which is what I said in my initial post. Whenever they manage to make a blockchain scale (if at all possible), then it might happen. Forking the ledger anytime there's a user you politically disagree with sounds very expensive not sustainable. Specially if the ledger is the main BTC or ETH, not gonna be effective.
> The only reason I would go there is to get complete freedom of speech, anything else, Twitter already does it and better thanks to network effects. If you are going to censor political speech you don't like just like twitter, then I see no point in switching.
Twitter can ban a person from the entire network/product versus no-one can boot a person off the Fediverse. Plus native integration with blogs and music and videos and other forms of content produced from other kinds of apps. Try leaving a facebook comment from a Twitter account, let alone trying to view such a post cross-applications.
> With the blockchain, you could be banned from a client, but the distributed ledger would still allow you to follow people using other clients. Big difference.
You can always spin up a single-user instance that is receive-only to ensure you get the diverse content you want.
Blockchain or Fediverse, replying would still be filtered out (by the popular blockchain client that filters your stuff, or by fediverse blocks on your send-and-receive account).
I'm going to step away from this conversation, I've pretty much said all I can on the matter, and have been talking in circles.
> Try leaving a facebook comment from a Twitter account
That's a feature no one really want, I hated when people mirrored their tweets to facebook for example. Different apps, different crowds, don't mix it.
> You can always spin up a single-user instance that is receive-only to ensure you get the diverse content you want.
Well no, did you read your own mastodon.technology rules? I can get banned from following from one pod if I follow people from another pod it doesn't like. Even if I don't say anything. Even twitter isn't that extreme.
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/crpf-j-k-police-kashmi...
https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/a-third-of-mislea...
Thanks for the concern. But I'm very much calm. You made a factually incorrect post without backing up with any credible links. I'm not defending Modi regime here. It would be great if you could tell me how much do you get paid for peddling anti-Modi Propaganda here?
> And do not cite me Propaganda Indian media here. It does not matter to any other than Sanghis.
Sorry to inform you, but you do not speak for everyone here. Could you point out where did you find Propaganda media in my comment? Maybe it's your background that's forcing you to think whatever doesn't agree with you is Propaganda?
Don't get me wrong, I'd love people moving from Twitter to Mastodon, but this article doesn't have any substance.
Twitter only has clout because of the people who hold accounts there that make it appear like it's more than a glorified internet forum.
Turns out, it was one of the best things Twitter every did for me. My life is way better without it. It's not actually sour grapes, after seeing what Twitter is doing and what people are using Twitter for - any good is definitely way outweighed by the bad of the platform.
Some metrics would be interesting.
I think the trigger point was when Jay Shah's account[1] got a blue tick despite being a dormant account with a just 19 followers (at the time of being verified).
Twitter India then issued a statement, which further had the Streisand effect:
https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1192384055884447744 (heh, just noticed the ratio on that ! :))
[1] https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/with-zero-tweet19-...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21482041
Also, there's the fact that Twitter was summoned by a Parliamentary panel when someone accused them of curbing non-left leaning voices.
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/twitter-india-summoned...
I really don't think it is. The replies on that twitter thread I posted there, from a couple of days ago clearly indicates (or at least implies) that the people leaving the platform are most likely the people unhappy with Twitter India's right wing bias.
Source: I read the news on daily basis from various sources to avoid bias media.
EDIT: I'm not on any political party side. Actually have voted for NOTA.
I sympathise with Twitter. India is number 1 on the list of countries that request for information on social media users and also in requesting censorship.
And they have a good reason for that. This is from the article:
The report said most of the blocked content was critical of the government's recent move to strip Indian-administered Kashmir of its semi-autonomous status, and were made after requests by the government itself.
There was a massive misinformation campaign against India on Twitter in the aftermath of abrogating article 370. Many of these tweets originated from Pakistani handles[1][2]. They have even started impersonating top Indian military officials on Twitter[3]. And it seems that they are not just stopping with Kashmir. The propaganda campaign even covers Rafale and Tamil Nadu[4][5].
I agree with you that the article isn't particularly anti-India. However, the article should've provided some more context considering that a lot of BBC readers are from the West.
1. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/crpf-j-k-police-kashmi...
2. https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2019/a-third-of-mislea...
3. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/pakistan-s-fake-news-p...
4. https://www.news18.com/news/india/as-rafale-adds-to-firepowe...
5. https://qz.com/india/1727752/pakistan-bots-helped-gobackmodi...