Twitter policy page forbidding links to other social media removed | Hacker News Reader

Twitter policy page forbidding links to other social media removed

139 pointsColinWright108 comments

It's returning a 404 ... the original is available via the wayback machine.

https://web.archive.org/web/20221218200110/https://help.twit...

Consider contributing to them.

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Mastodon links are still blocked.

Also removing a page is not a solution, they need to come up with an explicit policy at this point.

I signed up to Mastodon yesterday just in case.

Mastodon is much nicer than twitter ;)

With no content, it's a dead platform walking. Screenshots of Twitter don't qualify as real community engagement.

I feel bad for you.

Luckily that's not a problem it actually has.

If it had no content, you'd be right. But the instance I co-admin has a lot of traffic, and it's of significantly higher quality than I've found on other platforms.

Mastodon requires engagement to get your network established, and if you don't bother engaging, you'll get much less from it. If all you want is entertainment and amusement, maybe staying on Twitter is your best bet.

Find your twitter follows on mastodon:

https://fedifinder.glitch.me/

https://twitodon.com/

I have more than 20% of my twitter follows on Mastodon at this point. Content discovery is a bit different, need to adjust to it, but so far it's the best experience I've had at decentralized social networks since 20-y. ago IRC.

In my hobby, Mastodon is absolutely buzzing with activity and feels a lot more alive than Twitter did (possibly because Twitter insisted on ranking mainstream ragebait and populism above mild enthusiast discussion so it would always bury interesting stuff)

Likewise, a huge percent of the conversation on Twitter right now is about the present and future of Twitter, so I guess that doesn't qualify as real community engagement either.

Until you have to screw around trying to follow someone who signed up via another server and have to do nonsensicle crap like copying and pasting links to profiles instead of clicking the obvious 'follow' button because it intentionally does not work.

It's got a long, long way to become anything close to Twitter.

How would you solve the issue without breaking literally every single security feature of modern browsers?

By just using Twitter instead. And therein lies the problem.

Browser extension

E.g. https://mstdn.social/@feditips/109507990803168318

I feel like there’s a HTTPS client-cert-based solution out there waiting to be discovered.

Protocols like oauth do just fine, and accomplish the same sorts of goals:

- I click "Follow."

- Servers talk to each other.

- I get redirected to a URL with a unique hash on the other server. It tells me what I'm agreeing to and I agree.

- I get redirected back to a URL with a unique hash on the original server.

There are a lot of other protocols possible. This one doesn't rely on CSRF or other features, so it should continue working even with security features of future browsers.

Im not sure you understand the problem. How does the server with the user you want to follow know what server to talk to if all you've done is click "follow"?

Fair enough.

In that case, you can do it by selecting your home server. That's a search drop-down. Something like mastodon.social is there by default, and for historians.social, you might need to type in 'his' <click>.

I don't feel too bad about that either. It's like oauth, only instead of just having two options (Google and Facebook, typically), you have an unlimited options if you're willing to type a little bit more.

Or like SSO on many Microsoft web sites, where I type in my work domain or email, and it redirects through my work.

That’s annoying, but there is a browser extension for that. On the other hand, most people find people to follow organically through conversation, boosts etc, and none of that requires the extra step.

It's already better than Twitter, I can scroll down people's posts without the pages breaking.

i use the husky app and have never had these problems...

I disagree.

I see like three trends that all seem to be dead, so I have no idea what people in the world are actually talking about. All I see is that about 500 people talked about the FIFA World Cup final game during the past 48 hours, since that's taking two out of three top trends.

"Tweets" are much longer, so it no longer feels like microblogging. Sensitive content feels even dumber, I don't want to click "Read more" in order to view a tweet like it was some kind of a ad-bait blog post.

If someone sends me their profile link that's not on my instance, I can't actually reply to it. Instead, I need to go to my Mastodon instance and then search for that link in order to actually have an interactable version of that "tweet".

Everything also feels slower, possibly because it's having to juggle between so many different instances.

And I have no idea if I chose the right Mastodon instance with the right hall admins that won't read my private messages and ban me for having the wrong opinion.

I'd much, much rather stay on Twitter. It's just that no one has any idea if it's going to be a viable platform in the future and who are going to stick around there.

> won't read my private messages

I heard other folks who're more in the security mindset explain it that you shouldn't just trust your particular fediverse/mastodon instance not to read your private messages. If you have something truly private, exchange contact details for some other secure thing and have that conversation there. For instance, Signal.

> If someone sends me their profile link that's not on my instance, I can't actually reply to it. Instead, I need to go to my Mastodon instance and then search for that link in order to actually have an interactable version of that "tweet".

Actually, you have options:

https://mstdn.social/@feditips/109507990803168318

> And I have no idea if I chose the right Mastodon instance with the right hall admins that won't read my private messages and ban me for having the wrong opinion.

I'm working on that.

https://github.com/soatok/mastodon-e2ee-specification

> "Tweets" are much longer, so it no longer feels like microblogging. Sensitive content feels even dumber, I don't want to click "Read more" in order to view a tweet like it was some kind of a ad-bait blog post.

While messages can be longer, IME they tend to be about Tweet length.

Content Warnings are optional and can be expanded automatically by your client.

> And I have no idea if I chose the right Mastodon instance with the right hall admins that won't read my private messages and ban me for having the wrong opinion.

Valid. But I'm not sure this is much different at Twitter. And at least with Mastodon, you can leave and take your data with you. If you're concerned about this, you have the option of hosting yourself. I know a lot of people rankle at that suggestion but Twitter doesn't even give you that option.

>And at least with Mastodon, you can leave and take your data with you.

Can I? Because if I go to Import settings, I can see options to import my "Following list", "Blocking list", "Muting list", "Domain blocking list" and "Bookmarks". How do I move my posts and media?

Also, are these export options still accessible to me if the local hall monitor bans me? With Twitter, they are required to allow me to export my data under the GDPR and I feel like my local Data Protection Ombudsman might actually have some power to compel Twitter to do so. With Mastodon, I have less confidence.

It is. To the other responders, you have to find people to follow, it is not served up on a plate.

So if you feel like it is dead, or only football, spend a while looking for things and people that interest you.

To follow people from other instances, just search or follow the link through the instance you are already logged into, and all you have to do is click a follow button.

I would recommend looking for an instance that has some sort of similarity with what you are interested in. For example, I joined the Irish instance mastodon.ie so I know there will always be a stream of slightly humourous shite talk in the local time line. But there is also a good infosec instance, and a good quantum research instance.

But look, I never liked twitter in the first place, so maybe, yes for twitter people, Mastodon just won't scratch that itch!

You cannot trust Twitter again until someone else buys it. One policy means nothing since they can change it overnight… as they have done now.

It’s pretty obvious you can’t trust Twitter if someone else buys it either. It can always be bought by an idiot and run into the ground (again).

I am not sure if it can get much deeper into the ground anymore, since it makes people already turn away.

But it is true that it depends on the buyer. But there is new hope at least, if the ownership changes.

> I am not sure if it can get much deeper into the ground anymore, since it makes people already turn away.

Give it 24 hours.

It was(is/will be) a corporation - you cannot “trust” any corporation. None of what twitter / elon is doing is a surprise - it’s just a popular site so it’s more reported.

Not entirely true anymore. In my understanding Twitter is in the process for going private company, and by not being a public company reduces the pressure for profits.

For example Valve is a great example, how a private company can be successful and respect it's customers.

But the problem is, that the price is still going to be high for Twitter when it will sold again, even if the price is just a fraction. Not many are willing to buy it and then reduce profits by thinking the best of its users.

I’m sorry for confusion - I meant corporation in the sense that it’s a for profit org operating under capitalism. Not necessarily a public company, available on the stock exchanges.

Yeah, it's easy to add and remove policy pages, but I imagine there's more work involved in blocking and unblocking Mastodon links.

It's in Twitter's interest to say those links are now allowed, while still actually blocking them for at least another 24 hours to stem the outflow.

When they introduced the no-links-in-bio policy I imagine they had not actually written the code to scan 1 billion Twitter accounts for bios and tweets in violation of that policy.

Mastodon links in tweets have been blocked by someone adding a rule list to the malware filter for the last couple of weeks. It was a silent change. They just decided to formally announce it and ant the same time expand that to non-link text, referring people to @username on <service>, writing AT facebook DOT com, etc.

Since they introduced the link blocking silently, they will just leave it in place silently. Maybe they’ll get sued by a competition regulator in one of the dozen jurisdictions that this kind of thing is illegal in.

(Edit, the rule list was not comprehensive, so you will find plenty of counter-examples. Possibly by design to make people think it isn’t happening.)

Signed up a while ago and this showed up

https://mastodon.social/@oatmeal/109383511262415597

Sure, because Twitter crossed the red line for everybody when Facebook / Instagram / Mastodon links of users got blocked. This is unprecedented, no social media did that before.

Not _openly_ I'm pretty sure everything that affects the profits of these companies is downplayed by the recommendation system.

I hope this ridiculous debacle helps to show all the Twitter addicts that they don't really need that website in their lives.

Has social media been a benefit for humanity? I think most of us were happier before being drawn into these advertisement honeytraps of outrage.

> Has social media been a benefit for humanity?

Definitely yes. It was a miracle when in started, it changed everything. But at a later stage it was ruined by engagement and ads and recommended content and crippled ux. I’ve not used any social network for years because I just couldn’t force myself to get through the piles of crap just to connect with my friends and contacts. I’ve been using other methods since then.

>> Definitely yes. It was a miracle when in started, it changed everything.

Just because it “changed everything” doesn’t mean it was a benefit to humanity. In what ways would you say it has been beneficial for humanity? We already have plenty of communication tools for keeping in touch with friends.

> We already have plenty of communication tools for keeping in touch with friends.

Nothing that covers the same gamut of easy to use, easy to find people, etc.

I can’t think of any tools that allowed building a social graph. It was a novelty back in 00 and it was nice to have your close circle be easily discoverable and reachable. In a sense of discoverability social media was a benefit to many, many people. Before that it was ICQ/other ims and email only. And before that I had to write down the contact details; I remember having physical notebooks with addresses and phone numbers of people, back in early 90s. Don’t you think it was a nice thing to finally be able to easily connect with people?

It’s nice. It’s useful. I totally agree. But “Benefit for humanity” sounds much more grandiose and undeservingly so in my opinion.

Maybe. I rather opposed it to a harm to humanity. I’m not ready to discuss the absolute values. Let’s say I see the Internet as an absolute benefit to humanity and the social networks are (were) a useful part of it.

It doesn't have to be. You recycling your pop can is a benefit for society.

Unfortunately, capitalism tends to destroy attempts at being social. This is evident when social media starts amplifying posts to get more 'engagement' with the intent to sell more advertising whereas a more social version would be to amplify posts that are interesting or resonate with a lot of people. Hacker News is an example of social media that attempts to not fall into that monetising trap.

The biggest problem that I see with social media is when it teams up with political influence and then we end up with problems such as Cambridge Analytica and democracy gets damaged.

There’s a lot of people who use Twitter as their primary resource for marketing.

It’s especially useful for furry artists, to use an example I’m familiar with. Dedicated sites exist, but only hardcore furries go to them. Twitter is large enough that they can reach dabbling furries (or people who don’t realize they’re into furry stuff but The Algorithm has deduced this from their habits) in addition to their core audience.

The only other website that suits this audience right now is Tumblr, which seems to slowly be reanimating.

I can't tell if this is satire or genuine

FA still, despite everything, manages to remain a dominant channel for furry marketing. Mastodon has a bunch of furry instances and many more furry-adjacent. One cat runs two! (pawb.fun and furry.engineer) #FursuitFriday was buzzing last Friday, and the MFF tag was as busy as I've ever seen it on Twitter.

Also useful: https://furryfediverse.org/

> Has social media been a benefit for humanity?

I think there's countless people that didn't come from big cities or tech circles that managed to make friends across the world and get better paying jobs and move out from their home country thanks to social media. I even have friends that started businesses together after meeting on social media

So yes it's been a benefit for humanity!

I’d suggest that certain persons have benefited for sure but that doesn’t make the case that Twitter et al have been a net positive for humanity.

My personal view is that they have not been a net positive for humanity and have created a generation of young people with more mental health issues and less attention span amongst other issues.

It's difficult to measure whether something is a net benefit for humanity, and even if it were possible, that shouldn't be a factor in deciding whether or not it should exist. For example, if candy is potentially net negative to society as a whole but brings joy to an individual, should that person be denied the opportunity to make the choice for themselves and enjoy it? I believe that people should be allowed to make their own mistakes and learn from them. A world in which we prevent people from making their own decisions and only allow them to choose from net positive options is immensely bleak.

I hope this ridiculous debacle helps to show all the Twitter addicts that they don't really need that website in their lives.

Depends on who you include in "twitter addicts". I'd bet most Twitter users have barely even noticed. The interesting thing is that the group who care the most and are the most angry about it, who I will refer to as the "league of blue checkmarks", are also the group who most derive their own personal power and influence from Twitter, discouraging them from leaving.

I've noticed that people here on HN and Reddit talk bad about Social Media in general, but also forget that there's literally millions if not billions of people who have no idea who Elon Musk or Mark Z. are, but still use these social media platforms.

If I talk to my mom and asks her about Facebook; She loves it because she can message other family members with photos and stuff.

So to answer your question with my opinion, yes, social media has connected us globally and locally, even with all the issues that you and I are aware of, but most people aren't.

If I talk to my mom and asks her about Facebook; She loves it because she can message other family members with photos and stuff.

Yup. Most people are not technically inclined, and just use a computer, and platform, as tools.

They don't care who owns twitter, or is someone was banned from it, unless it was someone they follow. Even then 'meh'.

Even facebook/meta? Most people have no idea about the Cambridge Analytics scandle, and don't even see the issue if explained.

This whole post is a bubble. No one cares.

I agree.

Which is also why Mastadon will never grow outside said bubble. It's unfortunate but it's also waaaaay too technical. The general population will always stick to centralized platforms out of accessibility and usability.

What about those of us who have found work via Twitter?

> advertisement honeytraps of outrage

You are describing an experience that is utterly unfamiliar to me.

I met my wife on Instagram, and most of our early interactions were through Twitter.

I can't say whether it's been a net benefit for humanity, but at least speaking personally I'm glad it existed.

Wow that didn't last long. For me, that was the "Twitter is done" moment. Because it would ban away all the influencer types. So I wonder whether Twitter will recover if they reverse the policy now.

I wonder who at Twitter thought this was a good idea. We only know about the one guy, do we? Was the rest just forced into implementing it, knowing it would set their ship on fire?

The word on the street is that the boss (who says he's the law) currently isn't interested in other's opinions on his decisions.

If I was still at Twitter (by my own decision, ie not visa, etc), I would just enjoy the ride and see where it goes instead of trying to save the product and oppose Elon.

Elon is Elon. If he was too interested in other people's opinions, he wouldn't be where he is. That applies basically to all successful CEOs. Nonetheless he currently has a Teitter poll up if he should step down as a head of Twitter (and the majority voted Yes) and says he will do it if yes wins. Soooo...

First, click polls are garbage and alllllways have been, second, he runs the platform with no dissent the poll will say whatever he wants it to say.

So when Elon steps down you'll apologize for confidently claiming that Elon manipulates his polls?

That's implying that the doesn't want the poll to vote yes, and I don't think that's true. There are already journalists claiming that he has a new CEO in mind and was going to step down within the next day or two because of how much shitshow this is - a twitter poll is a perfect easy excuse "hey guys I really didn't want to step down but you voted yes so I'm doing it, look how great and honest I am, keeping my word".

Yes I know, but that's why the comment above was so bad. Claiming that "it's all rigged anyway" with no proof is not a useful way to add to a discussion. You can make such a comment on every single topic. Just claim it's rigged because who knows, you don't like the person or you think he's bad or you have a gut feeling you want to share.

I don't think it's rigged at all. But I also think it's an extremely convenient excuse if it votes Yes - that's all.

It doesn't matter if the polls are "rigged" as the demographic of "currently active Twitter users who follow @elonmusk" is not a representative sampling of all Twitter users. Many people who dislike him have him blocked, people who follow him most likely agree with him at least to some extent.

Note how when he suspended various journalists for posting screenshots of the Elonjet account after he changed the ToS on a whim, he first posted a 5 minute poll asking when they should be unsuspended with "now" being the result with the most votes, then deleted it and redid it with a 24 hour duration and just the options "now" (effectively meaning "tomorrow" as it would not be acted upon before the 24 hours were up) and "in 7 days". The poll again ended with "now" winning (by an even bigger margin). He obviously expected the original poll to go in his favor (after all, 5 minutes means it will mostly reach his direct followers and not have as much of a chance to exit his bubble). He even phrased the question in the most misleading way possible, referring to the accounts as having "doxxed my location in real-time" (again: this referred to posting screenshots with Elonjet's Mastodon account handle being visible).

Pretending this is in any way democratic or representative decision-making is absurd. Even when he reinstated various suspended far-right accounts (note that far-left accounts remain banned and he has since banned other far-left and even moderately left-wing accounts for less) he stated he would not reinstate Alex Jones for entirely personal reasons.

It doesn't matter if the polls are "rigged". They're not representative, they're not democratic and he doesn't care (nor is he legally required to). Calling them "rigged" is a distraction at best and normalizing the anti-democratic conspiracy theories about "rigged elections" at worst.

Looks like we'll shortly be finding out https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-your-money-64021412

As a cynic, I agree with the anonymous quote in that article:

> "His investors are surely looking at this now and questioning whether he was the right horse to back. I imagine he's getting pressure from investors to step down and is using this poll to make it look like he's following the will of the people instead of the will of those paying his bills."

"Changpeng Zhao is thought to be one of Twitter's investors and said in May he had backed Mr Musk taking over by making a $500m investment."

I didn't see his name in the court documents. He must have been on the Tesla emails which coule not be used because of an undocumented Tesla policy giving Musks email special privacy rights.

>>That applies basically to all successful CEOs.

Worth remembering that it also applies to all(or most) unsuccessful CEOs too, and there are a lot more of those.

>>Nonetheless he currently has a Teitter poll up if he should step down as a head of Twitter (and the majority voted Yes) and says he will do it if yes wins

I personally hope the poll votes NO, purely to make him stick with it and continue this circus for a while longer without an easy excuse of "the poll voted yes so I'm resigning". I'm seeing plenty of articles already claiming he will appoint a new CEO within the next 24 hours though.

The guy who slandered a rescuer as a pedophile because his nonsense idea of building a special submarine to rescue kids from a cave was snubbed is not "too interested in other people's opinions"?

The guy who claims degrees in fields that never existed at a university he never studied at is not "too interested in other people's opinions"?

The guy who made sure to add a clause in his separation agreement with PayPal that required PayPal to list him as a founder despite having made no meaningful contribution is not "too interested in other people's opinions"?

The guy who gave himself the title "Chief Engineer" at his own company SpaceX despite having no credentials or other qualifications in aerospace engineering is not "too interested in other people's opinions"?

The guy who replied to a random person's tweet about him being booed at a Dave Chapelle standup show to insist that it was actually 90% cheers and 10% boos except for the quiet parts, deleted that reply and then still insisted that he was only booed because the crowd consisted of woke SF leftists (who famously dislike Chapelle due to his recent history of mocking trans people) is not "too interested in other people's opinions"?

The guy who fired the entire communications department of Twitter so all requests for comment would have to go to him just like with his other companies is not "too interested in other people's opinions"?

The guy who slept on the factory floor at Tesla likely contributing nothing whatsoever by doing so is not "too interested in other people's opinions"?

The guy who became Twitter famous for pumping dogecoin, sharing other people's memes without attribution and trying to incorporate the numbers 420 and 69 into anything he can is not "too interested in other people's opinions"?

The guy who went through multiple chaotic rounds of layoffs after buying Twitter, regulations and local labor laws be damned, even going so far as to make the remaining employees virtually sign multiple "pledges" to do what he says is not "too interested in other people's opinions"?

I'm sorry to say, but based on his actions alone Elon Musk is one of the most insecure and fragile individuals on Earth and seeks constant reaffirmation by surrounding himself with yes-men and wielding whatever power he can get his hands on to shield himself from being subjected to any criticism.

But you're right in that he wouldn't be where he is if he were any different. His Twitter buyout literally started as a "meme" and blew up spectacularly because of his utter disregard for the law (or specifically in this case: contract law). He's used to get by by presenting himself as "real-life Tony Stark" and people are increasingly waking up to the fact that he actually is neither an actual engineer nor even remotely as business-savvy as everyone used to believe. Peter Thiel once called him a con artist and no matter what one may think about Thiel this description seems increasingly apt.

Seeing as how the entire legal dept. is gone, it’s apparently run on whatever Elons whimsy dictates.’

Yeah, pretty much

Backtracking is just the cherry on top. Nowhere is such an impactful decision (I mean, crappy decision) is done on such a whim

The Emperor's birthday suit is revealing itself day by day

Twitter bankrupt by FTC date for the report on privacy compliance which is Jan 2023.

It was the plan B all along.

It was just an overnight fever dream. Musk wakes up and does the "who did I send dumb texts to last night" routine.

The whole journey just seems like when big business and manic mental health episodes collide.

That was a crazy move. 99.9% of twitter users are there to promote something else

This proved that Twitter is bleeding out a lot of users and specifically named the concurrents he's scared of, and he just gave them free advertising.

What better way to prompt someone to establish themselves on an alternative than demonstrate just how fragile their presence on Twitter is.

My twitter feed is mostly people who “left” twitter

I have a friend that went of rails (schizophrenia) a couple of years back. One day he threw out all his light bulbs because they were listening devices for "the others". Or deleted all the files on his computer that contained the letter X, because it is "the unknown". Paranoia was a LARGE part of his life, in every decision he took.

My friend was experiencing a lot of stress in his life at the time, which the doctors says most likely induced the schizophrenia.

It looked a lot like what is happening with Musk now.

Musk is decades older than the typical onset age of schizophrenia

My friend is 42 and got it at 39 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Is posting links to other platforms not considered free speech Mr. Musk?

Musk has revealed himself to be just an outright liar. I used to believe the story about 'Elon time's being an artifact of optimism, but now I'm sure he's willing to just lie his @ss off to get people on his side. Really makes me wonder about his commitment to making life multiplanetary...

> Really makes me wonder about his commitment to making life multiplanetary...

I see no need to wonder about that one. It wasn't ever going to happen but it served well to get people aligned on pulling his cart.

To late. Already deleted an account with thousands of followers. Engagement was low, so no big loss.

It's probably best we just focus on our own platforms/websites. Haha

> Consider contributing to them.

I've been thinking the same lately. This is a critical public service.

I wonder what kind of growth Mastodon saw over the last 24hrs.

I’d say quite a lot. Anecdata etc, but over the last 24 hours I’ve had a new follower roughly every 10 mins, all new accounts. Never seen that level of activity before.

In mid-October the instance I co-admin had 2K accounts, about 600 of which were active.

We now have about 12K accounts with around half active. We've grown in fits'n'starts, and in the last 72 hours we've had about 800 new accounts.

This screenshot is from Nov 23rd: https://www.solipsys.co.uk/images/SCR_20221123_102916.jpg

This is today: https://www.solipsys.co.uk/images/SCR_20221219_112249.png

Here are new accounts over the past 8 weeks or so:

https://www.solipsys.co.uk/images/SCR_20221219_113810.png

In case anyone wants to discuss it or add other stats, I've submitted that separately here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34050994

No need to wonder https://bitcoinhackers.org/@mastodonusercount

They also deleted the tweets.

It’s interesting to me that so many people are upset when a mundane piece of software is banned, but were relatively content when factually accurate statements and news articles were banned.

I’m not a fan of this Twitter policy but I was also not a fan of what the company was censoring before. Its absurdly stretched definition of disinformation was a problem, but one that fit the political goals of many tech types who are now upset about the Mastodon thing.

I disagree with this interpretation - many have been vocally protesting each of the rounds of banning and policy changes, and multiple large waves of migration happened. This policy became such a talking point because of how there wasn't even a pretense of doing it for safety etc. Other policies may have been functionally more harmful, but this was bald-faced with no concievable defense for the blatent hypocrisy, and if anything is going to get people riled up it's hypocrisy.

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