So today I clicked a twitter link because companies like to use it for official announcements, only to be greeted with a login page. Was annoyed then I remembered nitter exists. It just prompted me to install Privacy Redirect which I should have done ages ago.

Github: https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect

Chrome Web Store: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-redirect/pmcmeagblkinmogikoikkdjiligflglb/related

Firefox Browser Add-ons: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/privacy-redirect/

Looks like twitter waited for the reddit API changes to do push this change to try to do it under the radar.

  • Vipsu@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    What makes this worse is that using Twitter pretty much requires one to give them your phone number. Accounts without one will often or eventually get locked for “suspicious activity” and given option to unlock the account by providing phone number.

    So anyone thinking about creating throwaway account to browse twitter, don’t bother.

  • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    I don’t know if I should be laughing or crying. It’s readily apparent that Musk and Spez don’t understand their product. Like, at all. Governments, politicians, NGOs, and businesses use Twitter because of the broad audience. It works as a platform for announcements because anyone can access it.

    Locking it down to only Twitter users kills this. It isn’t going to help ad revenue either to reduce the audience.

    I saw some people say this was a tech issue and not a policy change, and that better be the case if Twitter wants to survive. They lose their last competitive advantage otherwise.

    • JesusTheCarpenter@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      My theory is that they are being sneaky and this is a trial to see how it will affect Twitter if they only made it to registered users. That is why they are calling it a “tech” issue. What a bunch of bollocks. This way they can backdown if they see a negative impact by claiming that they “fixed” the issue.

  • Matharl@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    Maybe users will stop posting link to this site now that a lot of people can’t see it.

    I see this as a plus.

  • danhasnolife@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    The enshittification continues. Cannot believe they are taking a page out of Pinterest, of all places.

  • JigglySackles@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    I can’t wait for this stubborn jackass to kill off twitter to the point it becomes an unrecoverable decline.

    • cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      I never understood the appeal. I have friends that send me random twitter links and I’m like I don’t understand wtf I’m looking at, it’s difficult to tell who is talking to whom, and whatever it was isn’t funny or interesting to begin with. I don’t care what chucklefart69 has to say about a famous person. If I want to read the news, I’ll read the news. I’m ok with not knowing about a major event breaking within the first 5 minutes of it happening.

      • PR_freak@vlemmy.netEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        Right! I thought I was the only dumbass that found tweet structure extremely unintuitive and difficult to understand who was talking to whom

    • kromem@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      It’s pretty wild. Users are inherently lazy. Give a decent product where you can have a positive ROI on user engagement and sit back to rake it in.

      But actively be hostile to users and they are fickle as can be.

      I was on Reddit for 16 years with over 100k karma.

      And I’ve deleted the app I was using for it which they broke and switched app and habits over to Lemmy in less than 24 hours.

      Nothing like hubris with a dash of greed to ensure success for one’s competition.

  • KrapKake@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    Reddit… And now Twitter can go right into the garbage. Not using the stupid official app and I am not making a Twitter account. Nope.

  • Talos@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    Omg, I went to twitter.com and it requires a login now. That’s the end of that, I guess. Most people aren’t going to sign up to see a random sentence written by some person that was linked to by some random website.

      • NevermindNoMind@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        I just checked a random news article and embedded tweets seem to be working still. But when you click the tweet you get taken to the login page.

        • scutiger@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          2 years ago

          I don’t know why they bother embedding tweets. They always quote the tweet anyway, so you end up reading the same bit twice.

    • Notyou@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      Same thing happened to Insta back when I used to lurk on it. They start requiring a login to view any content, so I just noped out. I don’t care enough to make an account on every social media site.

      • partial_accumen@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        Well if that’s the case Twitter is as dead to me.

        Spez has talked about how he’s trying to model Reddit on Musk’s “success” with Twitter.

        It would be hilarious if Musk set up Spez to take the publicity fall to cover Musk’s plan to force Twitter for authenticated consumption only.

        • zeppo@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          2 years ago

          Twitter is way more prominent than reddit. I doubt that there’s a secret plan

          If anything, Splez is too dense to notice that Musk seems to be intentionally/unintentionally ruining Twitter. It’s really hard to imagine how someone could look at “ad revenue down 70%” and think wow, that’s what we need to emulate!

        • Augustiner@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          2 years ago

          Why does there always have to be a secret play involved with musk? Can’t they just both be incompetent at leading a social media company? This is just another example of Hanlon‘s Razor…

    • cerevant@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      Yep. I wonder what this is going to do to their traffic. I know I’m not signing up.

      I bet Reddit will follow suit.

  • sven@l.mchome.netEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    This is pretty terrible really. Governments, cities, states use twitter for alerts and news. Now I have to agree to be tracked and monetized to view information from my government. I think everyone needs to write to all your cities, states, schools, law enforcement etc and demand they stop using twitter for anything. Our taxes should not go to padding twitter’s wallets.

    • paddirn@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      As much as I hate the idea of Yet Another Social Media App, I kind of wish there was some sort of official government-specific platform that was only available to state/local/federal government(s) or organizations for making important announcements. No memberships required (other than posters or commenters), no likes, upvotes, or retweeting or whatever, just postings of information that people can get to from anywhere. Something completely untied from any corporate entities.

      • zeppo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        They could easily have their own websites based on Mastodon or Lemmy, not federated with anything.

      • bighi@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        The Brazilian government send SMS to people for alerts. It’s independent of apps, and everyone with a phone can get them.

        Seems like a good solution for important warnings.

        • NevermindNoMind@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          2 years ago

          I don’t use twitter, but I’ll check the local utilities twitter if there is a power outage so I can learn about updates, or the local transit twitter if there are delays, things like that. SMS isn’t very practical for those kinds of infrequent uses.

    • Godnroc@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      I’ve worked in local level government communication. Most of the time your just trying to hit as many places as possible in a hopeless effort to keep an interested public informed. The price is usually low, the audience is there, and information can be duplicated to other platforms easily, so it generally makes sense to use social media.

      That said, low engagement on a platform would be a great reason to consider cutting it out. A citizen with feedback is enough to spark the flame too.

    • poison@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      Our taxes should not go to padding twitter’s wallets

      Or just nationalize Twitter, make it a public utility like water, parks, roads, etc. Then it’s not subject to the whims of some clownshow billionaire dictator. It could be the people’s podium, not some damp troll cave.

    • zeppo@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      Now that Twitter has become what it is, I’m somewhat offended that my local government makes announcements on it. Hopefully this will be an impetus for them to stop… although many agencies use Facebook too, and FB and IG have been this way for years.

      • tvbusy@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        Lemmy is exactly what government bodies need. Anyone from other instances can see, vote and comment. They can limit sign up to only employees and their users immediately have an official seal of authenticity. @obama@whitehouse.gov would be so cool.

        • katy ✨@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          0·
          2 years ago

          I would prefer @potus@44.whitehouse.gov so that it makes it easier to defederate from extreme right wing presidents if, god forbid, they get in power again.

          Also for archival purposes.

        • zeppo@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          2 years ago

          They absolutely should be setting up lemmy or mastodon as official announcement sites. That would be a perfect platform.
          I think they also want to be on twitter, fb etc for the distribution potential though.

  • melonpunk@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    Wow, these companies are making it really easy for me to walk away. Thanks for the 15 years Twitter (I barely used you for the last 6 or so).