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Comment by arminiusreturns | Hacker News Reader

Went on a tweet storm a few months ago. Twitter locked my account and forced me to give my phone number. I started getting spam calls at a level I didn't before (may be coincidence but am very tight about that sort of thing, I don't even give my grocery store my #) and I knew, just knew that at some point, this very thing would happen.

Combine that with the story that the Saudi's had infiltrated twitter and were spying on users, especially in light of how they treat their opponents (Kashoggi), when do we stop supporting companies that do these obviously poor practices?

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> when do we stop supporting companies that do these obviously poor practices?

Well, you just indicated you chose to continue supporting this company with the poor practice above. What would make you switch away from them? Clearly the spam calls weren't enough.

It's a complicated issue. I am very privacy focused, the kind of person that doesn't do facebook, burns accounts on different forums regularly, etc, but I have to admit I enjoyed the information I got out of twitter while not enjoying some of their recent changes.

Since the spam calls and the phone link in though, I have already changed my twitter-name and lost all followers, and since then I pretty much stopped tweeting. Haven't logged in in at least a month now.

The main problem with adoption of an alternative is that I was using it to keep up with the kinds of people that aren't necessarily going to move to an alternative until it reaches some sort of critical mass. My RSS feeds are already full enough without having to add a bunch of random single person blogs to keep up with, so I'm not sure to be honest. Twitter was my main compromise to stay more socially connected with a wider array of people and it's hard to let go of that.

Despite my desire for good federated and open source social networking, it isn't quite there yet, and so for the time being the one social outlet alternative I see glimmers of hope in is WT.Social.

you can still follow people without logging into twitter. their posts are public. you can't DM with them though, and they also can't follow you. they also can't block you. but as far as "getting information out of twitter" is concerned, no account is needed

Exactly. These people are petting the dog after it attacks their kid, oblivious to the training they are offering and reinforcing. We as a collective are just teaching big tech how to more effectively enslave us for profit.

Or like staying with an abusive spouse. I don’t get it—why stick with a company that behaves this way, just to take part in a service that is frankly optional and unnecessary to life?

We get these threads a lot here. “Company X charged me for something they didn’t deliver and ripped me off!” So report fraud through your credit card and charge it back. “Bbbbut then they’ll ban me!”

I am very extreme already about these sort of things, and twitter was my one main compromise besides Steam... it just makes me feel like what is going to happen is the masses will always be on services like this and only a handful of hackers will be on the alternatives, creating and further encouraging information bubbles.

Your frankness is appreciated though, there is some truth there.

Saudi problem seems more severe! Call me crazy!

Not that I use twitter; people who get on the thing seem to have some bizarro Stockholm syndrome.

The average user has no idea what their phone is capable of, and how little effort it takes to spy on them. They think spying on them can only be accomplished by elite teams like on CSI:Miami, or that only some weirdo antisocial dork can do it, but only upon communion with the devil, at a crossroads, at the first full moon.

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