Marissa Cummings 吳至佳
mccWeek 1: We will finally bring free speech to the Internet
Week 8: Linktree is illegal
Now given I am sure that if I posted this on Twitter I would have five people with grecoroman statue heads as avatars explaining that in order to protect free speech it is in fact logically necessary to ban Linktree
(I think sarcasm is a poor vehicle for speaking clearly about these matters so to be clear: The reason their actions don't seem to fit with "free speech" is because they never cared about "free speech". This isn't even "hypocrisy". It's just ordinary lying. Anyway congrats to Mr. Musk for finally doing something so batshit he got me to subtweet him on Mastodon, something I've been specifically trying not to do)
ZetaZetan@mcc Ceterum censeo Linktree esse delendam.
Chris Silverman 🌻@mcc there was somebody on there trying to justify this as a GM car dealership not letting random people sell Ford shirts in the lobby.
I thought earnestly comparing a site that they were formerly claiming should serve as "the town square of the world" to a car dealership was a rather spectacular self-own that nobody on that thread seemed to grasp.
@csilverman "Obviously a Tesla car is not going to allow you to drive to a Ford dealership"
Nushka🏳🌈@csilverman @Nushka It's just so horrifying that "Elon Musk's mother" is now a thing we all have to be aware of
@csilverman @mcc that made me audibly chuckle.
@csilverman @mcc seems to be the case or, at least, she believes so. Kind of a curious take on the subject as it could give a reason for every content creator on the plataform to claim economic compensation. It could also make Twitter liable for everything illegal that any user posted...
Adam Casto@mcc It's always the statue heads
Dani — MLT(ASCP)@mcc
It just makes me laugh because Linktree was mostly used by creators to sell their stuff (good, excellent) and The Kids to make sure they can get maximum followage. Carrds seem to have gone out of style and they moved to Linkree.
Now everyone is using Linktree. At least this was how it was in my corner of Twitter.
But now, benign fluffy Linktree is the enemy of the 2nd richest stale ham sandwich in the world. What a ride.
Chris E@mcc Has it really been eight weeks? It feels as if it was just yesterday and also somehow forever ago...
demofox@mcc yeah. It's sad cause we all suspected his true colors and uhh yeah there they are. I finally just uninstalled.
Marcos Huerta@mcc My goodness, I thought you were being somewhat facetious (I had seen you couldn't link to other social media sites) but now I see Linktree is actually explicitly banned on the help page.
satire is dead.
mikej@mcc Going to decimate SW earnings
@mikej Yes, which is incredible because up to this moment "adult content artist/providers" were the only remaining group Twitter was still concretely superior for vs the alternatives
Except EVERY type of artist lives or dies by LinkTree...!
GanWeaving@mcc it's not banned though yet, right?
@mcc indeed. I tried posting a linktr.ee link and it worked so I was surprised. But Elmo is really losing it ... but it's also a really nice push for the other social sites!
VrimjMy understanding is what works on the website and the apps is different right now.
@WeavingWithAI There were reports of posts with mastodon links being "shadowbanned", IE, you can post them but they're hidden from feeds, which I was unable to confirm; are you sure that post can be seen by others? Does it appear when logged out?
@mcc good question. What I know is that I can't post links to Mastodon etc ...
JonP@mcc @WeavingWithAI looks like they're essentially banning URL shorteners like TinyURL and others that popped up recently as well. I don't see how they can chase down every secondary posting but I guess it will limit the effectiveness of tools like Fedifinder.
@jhpalin @WeavingWithAI They have a bot that, when you post a link, loads the actual website and checks to see if you're using a link shortener to avoid a ban.
Unless you're using this site that blocks the user-agent of their link-following bot. They haven't caught on to this yet, probably because they fired all the moderation staff already. https://spacekaren.sucks/
Space Karen Sucks
Free speech really should be free. To bypass the new censorship regime at twitter, use this URL shortener to link to Mastodon or other censored destinations. Considering recent policy decisions on twitter, please be aware that use of links generated from this site may constitute a violation of their policy.
Drooling Fan Girl@mcc For anyone else who doesn’t know what linktree is…
“It is also banning links to social media profile aggregators like linktr.ee. These are services that offer a unified page of many social media accounts. Trying to obfuscate the link (such as replacing the . in the URL with ‘dot’) will also be considered as violations.”
Twitter bans users from linking to other social media platforms like Instagram and Mastodon
On Sunday, during the World Cup, Twitter officially banned its users from linking to their profiles on other social media sites like Mastodon, Facebook and Instagram. Mentions of other platform handles are also now banned. The policy means Twitter users flocking to Mastodon are now longer allowed to tell their followers to go there instead, […]
Robin Metcalfe 🍞@drooling_fan_girl @mcc I’m looking forward to seeing them try to moderate a *ban on link obfuscation* with their skeleton moderation crew!
I feel for the Twitter devs tonight. “Build me a system that can detect any possible attempt to put any variation of these URLs anywhere on the site”. Good grief!
@toastymctoast @drooling_fan_girl A few days ago when the mastodon blocks started someone made a link shortener that blocks the user-agent for the Twitter link-testing bot. They named it "spacekaren.sucks" for maximum unsubtlety. You can just feed your mastodon, linktree, whatever link into the shortener and Twitter's blocking on post/malware-warning on click does not fire. Twitter has not caught on to this.
Doug Sheppard@mcc @toastymctoast @drooling_fan_girl I wrote a short piece of garbage PHP to do the same thing. I think the secret will be multiple installations (of spacekaren or whatever) so that blocking one of them isn't enough.
With enough luck and skill, we can get Twitter to completely ban outside links by December 30.
@sirilyan @mcc @drooling_fan_girl Heh, yep, it'd be a constant game of whack-a-mole!
I doubt they even have the capacity to do moderation on that scale anyway.
@mcc @drooling_fan_girl Haha, I saw that one, I was tempted to use it! The thing is too, I can't imagine they have anywhere near the staff/capacity to moderate content on a level like that either. Domains for link shorteners are essentially unlimited.
Even if they got $8 subscribers to report infringements (wouldn't put it past him), that's massively time consuming to deal with esp. after firing most of the employees. It's a daft policy from any angle!
@toastymctoast @drooling_fan_girl What I've seen people expressing fear about is it will basically be a form of arbitrary bans via selective enforcement— anytime an alt right person reports someone they get banned, because everyone's promoting offsite social media in some way. But they were already arbitrarily banning people as they displeased Musk, so I'm not sure we'd be able to tell the difference if that happened.
@drooling_fan_girl @mcc Yep, that was my concern, that it’s essentially just another nonsense reason to add to the list for when they want to kick more journalists off the platform or silence any marginalised group.
I think it all just plays into his obsessive desire to spread confusion, stay relevant. Familiar Tr**p tactics.
nev@mcc I'm sure bit.ly also works
Todor Todorov 💙💛@mcc Musk literally sinks it.
RyunosukeKusanagi@mcc on the other hand, I am curious how a fight between Twitter, TS, and Facebook is going to play out.
@RyunosukeKusanagi Sorry, what's TS?
(Unless you mean "transsexuals", who I believe Elon Musk has been openly feuding with for some time.)
@mcc sorry Truth Social
Alaric@mcc oh well so that means my old account will get banned as it has a linktree in the header. I guess then the nazis will set up a zombie account using my handle. What a weird place to be in.
David Gerard@mcc FREE JOHN MASTODON
Steve
Edwin G.@mcc I wonder what the authorities will think about Musk’s actions. Sounds like really anti-competitive behaviour on his part.
clara b@mcc EIGHT WEEKS.
Simon Brooke@mcc Hey, he made it to week eight. That's got to be some achievement.
@simon_brooke @dwaites I gotta admit. I was a little bit expecting us to reach this point sooner
Brendan Morley@mcc what a toot to wake up to
quayIt’s insane how every step they take is stupider than the last.
Benjamin Russell@mcc just wow! I missed this until now. I’ve had a linktree in my twitter bio for a while (i.e. not recently added). I wonder how if I leave it there, will I be banned? Hmmm…
Linh Pham@mcc In a few weeks, the only thing people can tweet is "Praise him" and they get taken away by a musk ox... er... Minotaur.
Pieter Lexis@mcc wait... It has only been 8 weeks? I feel like I aged 20 years
Paper Late@mcc I wasn’t sure if Linke tree was illegal so I removed it anyway. When I was thinking about it, it didn’t really matter that much to me because people could also search for my social media said they wanted to follow online. .
Luca Orio@mcc hahahaha this made my day
John Kellden@mcc
Within range of our social social media sensors, there is no meaning, other than the unaccountable human residual residents around the owner of the colony and the dumpster fire surface. At least, no meaning as we know it.
SPOCK: Within range of our sensors, there is no life, other than the accountable human residents of this colony beneath the surface. At least, no life as we know it.
elkakiYou've got to be kidding me 💀
@elkaki They abandoned the policy within a day or so (the post is from last December) but there are still iffy questions about whether certain things get shadowbanned