Dustin
Drew HarwellNew: Elon Musk’s X is throttling traffic to news websites and competitors he dislikes. Five-second delays on links to New York Times, Reuters, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky and Substack. Most other sites we tested have zero delay https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/08/15/twitter-x-links-delayed/ @jeremybmerrill
First flagged on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37130060
Substack’s cofounders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi tell me in a statement: "Substack was created in direct response to this kind of behavior by social media companies" https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/08/15/twitter-x-links-delayed/
New York Times spokesman Charlie Stadtlander tells me in a statement: "We have not received any explanation from the platform about this move" and "would be concerned by targeted pressure applied to any news organization for unclear reasons"
monorail times@drewharwell it’s cause Twitter sucks
Staid Winnow@drewharwell If the NYT does not like the terms, they do not have to be on X.
Free market, bitches!
Oh, the argument now is Free Speech must be free* to sacred institutions.
* Not applicable to consumers of news.
gnaddrig@staidwinnow @drewharwell Who said it is about their own Twitter presence? The delay will apply to any links to NYT content posted by anyone, right?
Unabogie has voted Kamala!Musk is a Free Speech Absolutist for speech he likes. Like Nazism or bigotry against trans kids.
@unabogie @drewharwell don't forget child porn. he has no problems with that as long as the poster is a right wing nut job
Filthius@drewharwell Substack? Ain't that a Nazi bar?
Kevin Leecaster@drewharwell
If a newspaper makes a statement like, "would be concerned by targeted pressure applied to any news organization for unclear reasons" about what ELoon would do to block news he doesn't like doesn't deserve to be called a journalism outfit.
If a newspaper makes a statement like, "would be concerned by targeted pressure applied to any news organization for unclear reasons" about what ELoon would do to block news he doesn't like doesn't deserve to be called a journalism outfit.
Educated Guesser@drewharwell
Shenanigans.
Shenanigans.
Ed Dean@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill the smallness on display can hardly be measured
AlexanderMars
JL Roberson@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill Why is anyone remaining on the comments thread of his 44 billion dollar blog again?
Basmitharts@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill And every one of those news sites and their reporters will happily continue to generate free content for him.
Tim@Basmitharts @drewharwell @jeremybmerrill perhaps this will finally get them off of X/twitter but I doubt it. They still want those clicks and will sell their souls for them.
Dan Herbert@Basmitharts @drewharwell @jeremybmerrill Not technically free. The Washington Post pays the premium rates for being a verified brand on the platform. So I think that makes the content cost "less than free" to exist there.
Susan Larson ♀️🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🌈@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill Those news outlets should stop covering him, his businesses, and don't accept any advertising from him.
Then they should do everything they can to encourage every other news outlet to do the same. Make him a non-person, and his businesses unprofitable.
Benjamin@Susan_Larson_TN @drewharwell @jeremybmerrill No, they should just cover him honestly. E.g. notorious liar Musk claims Teslas will do XYZ in 3 years. Experts point out XYZ is impossible on that timeline and point out a dozen similar false “promises”.
@birwin @drewharwell @jeremybmerrill Nah he lives for the attention, denying it will hurt him more than anything
Sebastian Lasse^ cc @peterhense
This _still_ is in my eyes “Abuse of dominant power” …
#TFEU or it will break.
Isho'ye@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill ElonJet also posts on Telegram, Nostr, and (*sigh* guess you gotta cover all the bases), TruthSocial.
Also, people shouldn't forget that it was under Dorsey's watch that the t(dot)co shortener was implemented, with some not being happy about it.
https://www.fastcompany.com/1657986/twitter-introduces-bitly-baiting-url-shortener-tco
@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill All the jets Jack Sweenry tracks, and their associated accounts, are here:
Tim Reed@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill on the other hand, […] malice […] incompetence.
Jamie MasonAnybody who is still on Twitter, either socially or professionally, they get what they get. I really don't have any sympathy? It's not like he masks who he is. Musk is trash.
Jamie
Joel@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill so.. it's not all user agents, but if you want to bypass this behavior you can change your browser's agent to Curl apparently 🤦♂️
joel@joels-Mac-mini ~ % for link in $links;do echo $link;time curl -v `echo $link` --user-agent Firefox 2&>1;echo $?;done
https://t.co/AKFXiLrMz5
https://t.co/uQqI9nXYRv
https://t.co/KJHtHOHSPX
https://t.co/DTuxeaN4Hw
https://t.co/gLNJk8zKpj
curl -v `echo $link` --user-agent Firefox 2&> 1 0.01s user 0.01s system 0% cpu 22.868 total
0
@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill joel@joels-Mac-mini ~ % for link in $links;do echo $link;time curl -v `echo $link` --user-agent curl 2&>1;echo $?;done
https://t.co/AKFXiLrMz5
https://t.co/uQqI9nXYRv
https://t.co/KJHtHOHSPX
https://t.co/DTuxeaN4Hw
https://t.co/gLNJk8zKpj
curl -v `echo $link` --user-agent curl 2&> 1 0.01s user 0.01s system 6% cpu 0.345 total
0
https://t.co/AKFXiLrMz5
https://t.co/uQqI9nXYRv
https://t.co/KJHtHOHSPX
https://t.co/DTuxeaN4Hw
https://t.co/gLNJk8zKpj
curl -v `echo $link` --user-agent curl 2&> 1 0.01s user 0.01s system 6% cpu 0.345 total
0
@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill
Just a reminder, anything longer than 1 second causes a disruption in flow.
5 seconds is inarguably anti-competitive behavior.
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/response-times-3-important-limits/
Catherine is not complacent@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill nothing he does is shocking. TwitX is dead and has been for awhile.
enmodo ⚛️ 🧬 🇺🇦 🍉@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill every one of these news sites should be setting up their own ActivityPub instance and giving their people accounts there. Then they can either ditch Twitter or only mirror posts to it. That won't stop Musk's throttling efforts but it will send a message.
Free speech should include freedom to say "look elsewhere".
Mary Ann Horn@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill pathetic. He’s off the deep end, needs help. And his clearances with gov should be revoked.
Dudula the Dud
Senator BrownshirtMusk's twisted version of "free speech."
I appreciate his unintended transparency.
Voron@jeremybmerrill @drewharwell please beat us more Elon says nytimes etc
Martha Howell
AJ
sigi714@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill Ah, the concept of free delayed speech.
Brian Pepple 
@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill It's beyond me why *any* news organization is still on Twitter. 🤷♂️
Word of Mouth @drewharwell @jeremybmerrill Oh no!!
No longer relevant to me... I'm not on Twitter. In fact, I added twitter.com to my ad blocker, so don't even see embedded tweets.
Why is this so hard for some people (cough cough... journalists)?
No longer relevant to me... I'm not on Twitter. In fact, I added twitter.com to my ad blocker, so don't even see embedded tweets.
Why is this so hard for some people (cough cough... journalists)?
Lee Calvin@falken @drewharwell @jeremybmerrill It really does make the whole internet just a little bit better
Takako 🐀@drewharwell 😂 he’s so petty.
Tess LaCoell@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill absolutely his right, but frankly he's strangling himself slowly while doing it. If there was an exercise in shooting one's self in the foot, Xitter (pronounced "Shitter") would be it. I'm not convinced it's not on purpose.
I've seen this tactic before. Destroy something by taking it over and mismanaging it on purpose. *cough Libertarian Party*
Lesley Carhart 
respectmyplanet.org@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill A real free speech absolutist? Or a petulant toddler of a dictator?
Sakamotoryou@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill this behavior is the same as CCP 😂
LaurelEH@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill He’s a controller but he won’t win. Money isn’t everything. Everyone must support sources and sites that he doesn’t control. We have to preserve sources of accurate information and news distribution that is true and uncompromised.
Phil Landmeier@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill Why is anybody still there? (That's just a rhetorical question. Lol.)
xs4me2Well guess that's the end stage then...
meat
Lacunalingua@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill so glad an infant is in charge of twitter now.
furina 💧⚖️@drewharwell least idiotic Elon move
Nika Mavrody@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill those are competitors.
william.maggosany chance of a WaPo.social server?
Debideaux@drewharwell and here we are the Trojan 
Uppity and OrneryIn other words, Phony Stark continues to be a colossal shitbag.
Xiuwen@drewharwell @jeremybmerrill Wow, 5 seconds, which are 1.67 full traffic stops (3 seconds). They really want to stop the traffic to these sites, don't they? 😂
Toni M.