News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by bufferoverflow on Sunday November 05, 2023 @09:41PM (#38158164)
Freedom of speech. Every other major social network actively suppresses speech. Especially conservative speech or anything that doesn't align with the ideology of the left.

And I don't even consider myself a conservative. I just like my information uncensored.

Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by gravitronic on Sunday November 05, 2023 @09:43PM (#38158178)
Oh fun, can you please give specific examples to what sort of thing is now allowed on X but not on facebook, that keeps you on X?
Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by j16sdiz on Sunday November 05, 2023 @09:56PM (#38158264)
X is still relatively porn-friendly.
Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by bufferoverflow on Sunday November 05, 2023 @10:07PM (#38158336)
It took me like 5 minutes to google a bunch of conservatives that got banned on FB. And it's not them that keeps me on X, it's the idea that some random activists are deciding which political speech I'm not allowed to see. It actually made me go and see what these people have to say.

Examples:

- Donald Trump.

- Milo Yiannopoulos.

- Paul Joseph Watson.

- Laura Loomer.

- Alex Jones.

Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by angoragoats on Sunday November 05, 2023 @10:25PM (#38158472)
These are not conservatives, they are criminals, authoritarians, fascists, and unhinged conspiracy theorists, who should not be given “free reach” to spread their message to millions of people.

On the other hand, pg, the creator of this site, was banned under the new management at Twitter. Ditto many other people whose only transgressions were saying words like “cis” or relaying publicly-available information.

Free speech indeed.

Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by wrycoder on Monday November 06, 2023 @12:00AM (#38159041)
pg posts many times a day on Twitter. He was briefly banned when Elon and he started arguing, but they quickly worked it out.
Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by angoragoats on Monday November 06, 2023 @03:30AM (#38160051)
Yes, that’s true, and doesn’t refute anything I said.

I mean, literal Nazis post hateful shit every day and don’t get banned. So the takeaway is that as long as you don’t anger the toddler-in-chief you’re good to go. Free speech!!

Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by threeseed on Sunday November 05, 2023 @09:43PM (#38158181)
Twitter is complying with more government demands under Elon Musk. [1]

Before Musk, Twitter's full compliance rate hovered around 50%; since the takeover, it is over 80%.

These countries include China [2] and India [3].

[1] https://restofworld.org/2023/elon-musk-twitter-government-or...

[2] https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/twitte...

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/05/twitter-accuse...

Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by peyton on Sunday November 05, 2023 @09:52PM (#38158235)
What’s wrong with following the law? The article you linked states that Twitter used to not follow the law. Now it does. I’m happy with the speech laws in my country, and full compliance is all I want from a messaging layer.
Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by threeseed on Sunday November 05, 2023 @10:00PM (#38158289)
Because in many countries e.g. China the laws are more about ensuring companies toe the government line.

So you can't argue that X cares more about free speech than Twitter when they aren't willing to fight those laws through the judicial system. As always judge people on their actions not their words.

Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by kodapoda on Sunday November 05, 2023 @09:55PM (#38158254)
"Non-conservatives" who just want "uncensored information" struggle to process factual information. This is all fake news because Musk said so—and since he personifies the uncensored truth, how can one not trust him? A vicious circle.
Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by gkoberger on Sunday November 05, 2023 @09:47PM (#38158207)
Elon has done just as much “censoring”, if not more. He’s just changed what he censors. Remember when he went on a personal banning spree? Or increasing censorship on the things the Turkish/Chinese government asked him to? Or where he banned people for “parodies”? Or blocking links, like those to Substack? Or shadow-banning people he personally was arguing with, such as Taibbi? Or how he now considers the word “cis” a slur that you can’t say? He even banned the guy who created this site (pg).

He censors. He just censors the things he doesn’t like. Can you give an example of anything you can say on Twitter that you can’t say on, say, Mastadon or even Facebook?

Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by zappb on Sunday November 05, 2023 @10:32PM (#38158518)
It’s much easier to get away with racial slurs on Twitter now, especially if they’re 21st century slurs commonly used on 4chan. On Mastodon, people will block or defederate you for that, but Twitter will make it trend.
Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by bufferoverflow on Sunday November 05, 2023 @10:12PM (#38158369)
"As much" censoring is a lie. Prior to Elon Twitter banned tons of conservative accounts with hundreds of thousands or millions of followers.

Taibbi is still on Twitter and is posting like every hour:

https://twitter.com/mtaibbi

> Can you give an example of anything you can say on Twitter that you can’t say on, say, Mastadon or even Facebook?

Ask Trump.

Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by phailhaus on Sunday November 05, 2023 @09:51PM (#38158231)
Facts don't care about your feelings: Twitter admitted it was biased towards rightwing politicians and news outlets. [1] The idea that Twitter was "censoring conservatives" was always a lie, because they tended to break the rules more often.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/22/twitter-a...

Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by bufferoverflow on Sunday November 05, 2023 @10:15PM (#38158395)
> because they tended to break the rules more often.

No, this is a lie. The rules were applied in a very one-sided manner. A left-leaning poster would not even get a warning, while a right-leaning one would get insta-banned forever for the smallest infraction.

Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by Kye on Monday November 06, 2023 @06:07AM (#38161066)
That's weird because I watched as left-leaning accounts got banned one after the other over the years. Maybe you think it's biased a certain way because of who you follow and listen to.

I never thought I would recommend an episode of Joe Rogan, but the one where he had Vijaya Gadde on provided a lot of insight into how Twitter thought about moderation. It was a lot more nuanced than I expected.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZCBRHOg3PQ

Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by angoragoats on Monday November 06, 2023 @08:47AM (#38162502)
Please provide evidence to support your claims.
Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by lmm on Sunday November 05, 2023 @10:08PM (#38158344)
> Twitter admitted it was biased towards rightwing politicians and news outlets.

Twitter claimed it was biased towards rightwing politicians and news outlets, while refusing to release the data that it claimed would show this.

> The idea that Twitter was "censoring conservatives" was always a lie, because they tended to break the rules more often.

Were those rules neutral? Even more importantly, were the people determining whether those rules were broken or not?

Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by kodapoda on Sunday November 05, 2023 @09:51PM (#38158233)
So glad Musk personally banned the account that was tracking his flights. This country would have transformed into a communist dystopia if it was allowed to operate any longer.
Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by zlg_codes on Sunday November 05, 2023 @09:59PM (#38158278)
If you want free speech, you will never get it on a platform. Self hosting is the only way to know your message isn't tampered with or canceled.

I have a friend who thinks X and Elon are great, and yet he misses the possibility of no platform at all to interfere in your communications.

Many Twitter accounts have been locked post Elon, so it's curious to me how anyone can consider it truly uncensored or free speech in any capacity.

Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by fortran77 on Sunday November 05, 2023 @10:14PM (#38158386)
KiwiFarms couldn’t even self-host.
Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by zlg_codes on Sunday November 05, 2023 @11:51PM (#38158983)
Not totally familiar with what happened with that site. What prevented them from hosting?
Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by inemesitaffia on Monday November 06, 2023 @08:08AM (#38162105)
Can't get an ISP or CDN
Re:X Is Reportedly Selling Inactive Usernames for $50k by thomasfromcdnjs on Sunday November 05, 2023 @10:02PM (#38158299)
Not sure why you are getting downvoted.

As a centrist Australia, it was clearly leftist.

I much prefer it now, I can actually see post from both sides.