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Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

Twitter won't show complete threads now without an account. :(

Twitter accounts basically de facto require a phone number, or they get suspended.

You may have a more enjoyable reading experience using the nitter frontend: https://nitter.net/TrungTPhan/status/1429464889307762688#m

It doesn't, sure you'll get suspended alright, but you can appeal and get unlocked if you persistently tell that you don't have a cellphone.

Which in my case is true, and yes I know I sounds like that guy: https://www.theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-d... ;)

This isn't true at all. I just double checked and you can view the thread logged out no problem. Twitter's UI is admittedly garbo so depending when you clicked on the thread you may have needed to click an expand link.

It's not consistent, I've been getting these login-walls for a while on Twitter when browsing incognito and now it started to show up on my normal windows if I'm logged out.

It's some kind of A/B test or progressive rollout, they are definitely forcing me to login to view threads and there is no way around it on the official Twitter website. I've been using nitter.net instead.

Oh it's worse, it's location dependent. Developed countries have more limited access, which is kinda ironic.

I'm in the US.

It's intermittent. I've got the wall and then loaded it in incognito. A/B testing?

It's not consistent across loads, but I do get it some times.

Yep, I feel bad for many of the less technical "rubes" who still believe they're somewhat anonymous on the internet if they, e.g. use Incognito (which Google went out of their way to market as such), or buy some dubious VPN service, or use disposable emails on Reddit, Twitter, etc. accounts.

You are simply not anonymous on any site you visit or search you make or place you go with your phone. The tech giants and their "data sharing partners" can correlate you a dozen ways, and most of that is by design via "features" like JS APIs and browser data that is included in every request.

Those of us paying attention know that Twitter, Reddit, Google, FB, and the rest will turn over your real ID to law enforcement, no questions asked.

And it won't be long now 'till some conservative whistle blower from Google or Twitter leaks the proof that the tech giants - via the more politically inclined activists and operatives who now work in their executive offices - have created blacklists which are used to ensure no wrong-thinkers (e.g. Trump supporters) are hired or employed at their own companies. And then it will be leaked that these same blacklists were traded and sold off to their "partners", and are being used for similar purposes in all of corporate America.

And from there, we know how this story ends, though I'm not sure the activists enabling it understand that things won't turn out well for them either.

I think it's a matter of the data lords not yet playing their hand. We know they have this data but they haven't used it yet in any high profile case. They're just still in the extend phase.

I agree with your sentiment there's political blackmail at work in big organizations, but you may be surprised to learn that it's not all/just anti-Trump. Trump is rightfully seen as a racist tyrant-to-be in liberal circles, but still has and had a lot of institutional/corporate support (which got him in power in the first place, and helped him attempt a coup early this year).

Just imagine what life is like as an anti-nationalist anti-capitalist worker. In most fields it's NOT an easy position to hold, because you've got both the good-thinking liberals and the hardcore fascists against you. And here we're just talking about ideas which are not written on your forehead, but the situation globally is really bad for women and people of color (for example) in a lot of industries/institutions.

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