News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by masklinn on Monday February 17, 2025 @05:09AM (#43077171)
> I suspect they've reached the stage where they don't even need to pretend to pay lip service to their notional values.

It took 6 weeks for that milk to rot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2022_Twitter_suspensi...

Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by nomilk on Monday February 17, 2025 @05:19AM (#43077247)
X/Twitter should publicly provide a suspension reason - that would help a lot in verifying whether the account did/did not break TOS.

A justification [0] of sorts is provided for the journalist suspensions:

> Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2022_Twitter_suspensi...

Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by _heimdall on Monday February 17, 2025 @07:55AM (#43078478)
That's not a new problem though, platforms have been kicking people off with no clear reason for years.
Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by nomilk on Monday February 17, 2025 @08:02AM (#43078538)
That's true, but there's no reason Twitter/X has to stay like that.

Stack Overflow has a pretty good model. It does not remove suspended accounts nor their posts (except those directly related to the suspension). It subtly signals that an account is in suspension by reducing the account's 'reputation' (internet points) to 1 and placing a small notice on the profile, usually stating the reason for the suspension (e.g. suspicious voting etc).

Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by masklinn on Monday February 17, 2025 @08:02AM (#43078530)
Those platforms have not, however, been billing themselves as champions of unfettered free speech before handing out arbitrary unexplained bans when their feelings got hurt or they disliked the speech.
Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by _heimdall on Monday February 17, 2025 @10:44AM (#43080088)
Companies market themselves in ways that disagree with how the companies operate all the time. Marketing is frequently misaligned with what the company or product actually is.
Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by masklinn on Monday February 17, 2025 @10:59AM (#43080254)
So your take on it is "oh he's a hypocritical liar but it's OK because he's not the only one"?
Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by _heimdall on Monday February 17, 2025 @11:12AM (#43080412)
No, you're putting words in my mouth. My point here was simply that we should take any marketing as an accurate view of reality.

Pick a company and you will almost certainly find contradictions in how they publicly represent themselves.

Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by scarab92 on Monday February 17, 2025 @06:38AM (#43077819)
A couple of journalists broke Twitters rule on doxxing, and were briefly suspended.

Wikipedia cops a lot of criticism for being politically biased. The fact it has a whole article around this seems to support that.

Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by masklinn on Monday February 17, 2025 @07:55AM (#43078475)
> A couple of journalists broke Twitters rule on doxxing, and were briefly suspended.

That is a complete lie. Musk "updated" twitter rules to ban the tracking of private jets (namely his) despite that being public information, and immediately proceeded to suspend accounts having relayed that public information, and accounts which had mentioned or linked to such, or to aviation tracker websites.

Musk also routinely singles out individuals of companies or administrations he dislikes e.g. https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-bullying-federal-wor...

Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by scarab92 on Monday February 17, 2025 @08:03AM (#43078545)
Doxing often involves linking data in public datasets to de-anonymised individuals. Using ADS-B to achieve that is just an implementation detail.

Ultimately, there's little doubt that sharing the real time location of named private individuals is doxing.

It's true that Twitter suspended journalists only 24 hours after the ban on doxing went live, but the penality was minor, and journalists were allowed back after they removed the offending content.

Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by dtj1123 on Monday February 17, 2025 @06:47AM (#43077879)
What exactly is it about that article that leads you to label it as politically biased? I see nothing but apparently factual information without any commentary.
Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by scarab92 on Monday February 17, 2025 @06:50AM (#43077902)
It's existence.

A couple journalists broke a social media platform's rule on doxxing, and were temporarily suspended for it.

This wouldn't meet the standard for notability if it occurred on any other platform.

Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by orwin on Monday February 17, 2025 @07:47AM (#43078398)
And why was CrimethInk banned then? because they didn't dox anyone, never called for violence against people or location.

Until a "free speech defender" can explain what CrimthInc did that was against free speech that warranted the ban (and not either ignore it or sweep it under the "mistake were made" rug), i will keep thinking they are only a Musk glazer, deal?

Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by pastage on Monday February 17, 2025 @07:10AM (#43078068)
You can not make Wikipedia care about your pet idea without working on it yourself, so the absence of information on something is more an issue with you than with the people that edit Wikipedia.

It is impossible to argue against you because it is an opinion. First of all there is not one "Wikipedia", second of all as politicians usually say "I can not comment on specific cases". There is some truth in that saying, you can only talk about the policy and the policy continues to be "neutral point of view". Considering the horribly biased alternatives to Wikipedia that has sprung up, I would say that Wikipedia is probably the best NPOV you are going to get.

Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by Zambyte on Monday February 17, 2025 @09:15AM (#43079215)
> You can not make Wikipedia care about your pet idea without working on it yourself, so the absence of information on something is more an issue with you than with the people that edit Wikipedia.

Have you actually tried creating articles on Wikipedia? I've seen some pretty notable projects have pages that they wrote for Wikipedia be rejected as being "not noteworthy enough". Specifically Pleroma (a Fediverse application similar to Mastodon) comes to mind.

Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by pastage on Monday February 17, 2025 @12:51PM (#43081535)
I have many fought for many disputed articles, Bitcoin is one of them. I would agree that Pleroma is not noteworthy, I am not a deletionist so I would not delete it but that is a slippery slope and you end up writing articles about date handling in Cobol. I just accept and move on, e.g. expand on the Fediverse article.

I feel for people who get their pet idea deleted.

Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by immibis on Monday February 17, 2025 @06:53AM (#43077927)
Did they break the rules on doxxing, or did Musk just say they did?
Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by scarab92 on Monday February 17, 2025 @06:58AM (#43077970)
They shared the real time location of private individuals (or links to it).

They were penalized only 24 hours after the ban took effect, but the penality was minor.

Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by notahacker on Monday February 17, 2025 @07:10AM (#43078070)
I mean, it's a massive stretch to pretend that sharing an ADS-B feed is somehow more of a share of the real time location of private individuals than livetweeting an event individuals are present at, and the reporting on Elon's U-turn on the ElonJet account that he banned journalists for came after the account had been deleted...
Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by aredox on Monday February 17, 2025 @07:52AM (#43078446)
The rules on doxing are applied haphazardly.

Musk is fine with censorship with his Chinese CCP friends, anyway, so the hypocrisy is as big as his Melon.

Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by soulofmischief on Monday February 17, 2025 @06:49AM (#43077896)
When you say "Wikipedia" do you mean the site operators, or the volunteer editors? If there is a factually incorrect statement in the article, instead of complaining about bias you can always edit it or start a section in the Talk page on the article. Be a part of the group and reduce its perceived bias.

The simple existence of a page that documents an event is not evidence of political bias, and that accusation says more about your own biases than it does Wikipedia editors.

Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by scarab92 on Monday February 17, 2025 @07:00AM (#43077987)
The editors.

The problem is that notability is very subjective, and wikipedia's editors are notorious for applying a low threshold for information critical of those on the right, and high threshold for information critical of the left.

Suspending a few journalists for doxxing would not meet the notability threshold for an article to exist, if it occured on any other platform.

Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by soulofmischief on Monday February 17, 2025 @07:15AM (#43078101)
If you have verifiable information that debunks or improves upon existing text in the article, which meets the standards of the organization (not self-published, etc), I promise you that your edits will be considered and integrated. There is a Talk page for a reason.

The system is not perfect, and is still vulnerable to certain kinds of subterfuge, but the more critical thinkers involved in the process, the better. If you consider yourself a critical thinker, consider adding to the body of knowledge.

> if it occured on any other platform

Who cares? Those platforms are not Wikipedia, and serve different goals. You will find plenty of historical events covered in great depth on Wikipedia despite only involving a few people over a few days. Don't fall victim to cherry-picking.

Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by scarab92 on Monday February 17, 2025 @07:26AM (#43078194)
You seem to have completely missed what I was saying.

Journalists get suspended from social media platforms for doxing all the time.

These events are not newsworthy, and wikipedia articles are not written about them.

The problem isn't the content of this article, it is that the article exists at all. It only exists because wikipedia editors apply different notability thresholds to one side of politics than the other.

Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by soulofmischief on Monday February 17, 2025 @09:15AM (#43079218)
You're making up rules that no one is required to follow. Wikipedia doesn't exist in order to appease you, it exits in order to educate you.
Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by scarab92 on Monday February 17, 2025 @12:12PM (#43081110)
You have the reading comprehension of a kindergartener.
Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by buttercraft on Monday February 17, 2025 @11:49AM (#43080826)
Wow, post after post of rhetorical, bad faith bullshit. Amazing.
Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by scarab92 on Monday February 17, 2025 @12:11PM (#43081102)
“Bad faith” coming from the left has about as much credibility as “nazi”.

You lost the election because you couldn’t debate like adults and resulted to name calling.

Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by llamaimperative on Monday February 17, 2025 @06:46AM (#43077874)
> link to Watergate Scandal article

> Wikipedia’s political bias confirmed

Re:Twitter blocks links to Signal messenger by scarab92 on Monday February 17, 2025 @07:02AM (#43078003)
A president breaking the law, vs a few low-level journalists breaking a doxxing policy of a social media website.

Hardly equivalent in terms of notability.