Links mentioning Mastodon flagged as sensitive on Twitter? | Hacker News Reader

Links mentioning Mastodon flagged as sensitive on Twitter?

mastodon.online

111 pointsmsten56 comments

Leaving aside discussion of the public dumpster fire going on at Twitter, or the constant shrieking about "free speech", or the weird culture warrior turn its CEO has taken...

I've actually been reasonably pleased with Mastodon. It's got its rough edges for sure, but it's weathered the Twitter expatriation storm better than expected, and lots of folks I follow are mirroring their content there. The Fedifinder tool (fedifinder.glitch.me) is a really quite painless way to update my follow list as people move over.

I don't know whether or not Twitter is going to be "replaced" any time soon, but right now this does have sort of the feel of a Digg moment to me.

It no longer does, at least not for me in web Twitter.

Check out for yourself: https://twitter.com/joshuatopolsky/status/160230074530237645...

Do you see a warning label or not? I don't.

Comment below if you see or not.

Update: the difference seems to be logged out or not.

If I'm logged in, I don't see the flag. I see it when not logged in.

I see a flag.

I also see a flag. I'm not logged in or have any cookies, if that matters.

I see the flag.

I do see a flag.

Not seeing a flag.

See a sensitive content flag

For me the tweet is hidden behind a message that I need to change my settings to see sensitive content.

You will not see a warning label if you have "Display media that may contain sensitive content" checked.

https://twitter.com/settings/content_you_see

Can confirm. I didn't see a flag. I unchecked that setting and refreshed. Now it's hidden behind a message that says "The following media includes potentially sensitive content."

Just another reason why we should have OPEN SOURCE platforms that are hosted on thousands of domains.

Here you can use this to build your own Twitter, complete with video broadcasts peer to peer: https://github.com/Qbix/Platform

I wonder how many instances Twitter will be (soft) censoring? New instances can pop up at any moment, does Twitter plan to deplatform all of them, just ones that host objectionable content, or just those that are big enough to notice? This is a game of whack a mole. Good luck swinging that heavy ban hammer, Elon.

It should be relatively easy to detect — Twitter can simply check whether a domain implements ActivityPub when a user tries to submit a link.

Wow that would be a scorched earth policy, would it not? You would then be deplatforming video and image hosting sites, discussion forums, and blogs. Including people.kernel.org, the Linux kernel developer blogging platform.

Sure. I don’t know the ActivityPub spec; maybe there’s some way to disambiguate further. But I think Elon would be fine with deplatforming anyone for whom he could get away with it.

Why would you think that? His whole shtick was to NOT do that

Elon is even going after Wikipedia now for revealing his dark secrets.

Just so you guys know - censorship and bans on Twitter are not at all a thing of the past in the Elon Musk era. There is, of course:

https://twitter.com/JulianAssange

which is still "Account suspended"

but also new suspensions/bans, e.g. left-wing commentator Garland Nixon:

https://www.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/z2depd/garlan...

and additional examples.

@ElonJet was also limited: https://twitter.com/jxcksweeney/status/1601793874594496512

For those who don't know what @ElonJet is: It is not a human's account, it is an account where a bot posts locations in the world of Elon Musk's jet (which it gets using publicly-accessible data).

TBH, I believe that bot activity regulation and censorship of people are two distinct issues. Still, the search-shadowbanning of @ElonJet is quite inappropriate.

... for absolutely no reason because twitterers won't go there

There aren't two tribes here, some people use both and lots are switching right now.

This has been standard operating procedure at Twitter long before Musk: https://reclaimthenet.org/twitter-censors-all-links-to-bitch...

And at Google as well: https://reclaimthenet.org/google-play-bans-bitchute-app/

Edit: And at reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Tartaria/comments/ktwypc/warning_re...

What's the connection you're making between Mastodon and BitChute? I'm missing it.

Censoring competition/alternatives.

Was BitChute a significant Twitter competitor? Or just a far-right propaganda and misinformation outlet?

That is quite a stretch. Bitchute is video hosting, so it's not a Twitter competitor. And you're ignoring that it's well known as a host for hate speech. [1][2]

[1] https://www.adl.org/blog/bitchute-a-hotbed-of-hate [2] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2021/02/24/the...

And the internet isn't print journalism, yet it struck a near-fatal blow to newspaper budgets. That's the economic side of it. The other side is, as you say, established media discreetly [1] censoring alternatives that don't toe the line. But I don't care to have my web browsing be censored by the ADL, no matter how they justify it.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Tartaria/comments/ktwypc/warning_re...

All this Reddit/Bitchute/newspaper stuff is a non sequitur — we're talking about Twitter and Mastodon, not any of those other things. Censoring Mastodon is a new policy under Elon.

The point of the "hate speech" comment is that there's a plausible reason to suppress Bitchute that doesn't involve stifling competition (especially because, as GP mentioned, Bitchute isn't actually a competitor to Twitter). So it's not even analogous to what's happening here.

> we're talking about Twitter and Mastodon, not any of those other things.

I don't view things so narrowly. If you want to limit yourself to only Twitter and Mastodon, you are free to do so, but that does not make similar cases non sequiturs.

You haven’t demonstrated that they’re similar. So far, all you’ve shown is that Twitter previously displayed sensitive content warnings on links to a video site known for hate speech. That’s the whole point of a content warning. It's not analogous to the current situation, which is that Twitter is abusing that warning to stifle a competing service.

It's both censorship, you just like the excuse/justification given in one case.

> all you’ve shown is that Twitter

And Google, and reddit. Somehow, when shown the gatekeepers of online attention all censoring in concert with each-other, you see only isolated instances.

"It's completely different. They censored Bitchute before, but now it's Mastodon."

It's censorship when they take down spam bots and child porn. But I don't hear you comparing that to what's happening here, because they would be ridiculous comparisons. Again, what is the point of a sensitive content warning if not to warn people about sensitive content?

If, as you allege, the major social media sites are all in cahoots, why is Twitter the only one making it difficult to share links to Mastodon?

Mastodon is also known for hate speech, with whole instances seemingly devoted to it.

Meanwhile, the ADL is also well known to push an agenda far beyond addressing hate speech, acting as an apologist for crimes against humanity in service to Israel's colonial regime.

Some people in Texas have been known to be outspoken with their hateful views; does that make Texas a host for hate speech too?

I hope you warmed up before stretching like that, as I'm afraid you'll hurt yourself.

I agree with you that the ADL's recent Israel positions are often short-sighted and terrible. But their century of tracking and fighting hate is solid work, and even if you didn't want to listen to them here, plenty of other groups agree with them on Bitchute. I even linked to one of them for you.

As to the rest, I'm not even sure what your point is. If you figure one out, let me know.

I think the idea is that BitChute tries to position itself as an alternative to YouTube, and Google (as the owner of YouTube) is doing its damnedest to prevent people from using the alternative. Replace BitChute with Mastodon and Google/YouTube with Twitter and its a similar pattern.

Sure, but the commenter said that this has been operating procedure for Twitter. But that does not seem to be true -- mastodon links have not been (soft) censored up until this point.

I was responding to the question about what link OP was trying to draw between BitChute and Mastodon, no idea at all about the second question re censoring Mastodon links on Twitter.

But again, responding to your parallel comment, OP is not saying that BitChute is a competitor to Twitter. It's that entrenched player <a> is (soft) censoring new competitor <b> where <a>, <b> are filled in with (Google/YT, BitChute) and (Twitter, Mastodon).

That's the most charitable read I could come up with, too. It's such a tenuous connection, though, that one wonders why it's even worth mentioning in this context.

Sounds like another bias Musk should look into removing.

Seems like censoring a website known for hosting hate speech is a bit different to censoring mastodon

the call is coming from inside the house.

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