Other social media sites have been doing it. Do we want to join in?
EDIT: Some people are saying that this is a power that ought to be left to communities… do we have a specific delineation of powers that relegates these decisions to communities? If not, then I recommend that these users propose such a delineation of powers. I would be very ok with this proposal failing because instead we got a more explicit set of checks and balances.
As others have done the best solution seem to be blocking twitter links but still allowing screens, this way you preserve the content but don’t give them any clicks.
I agree.
This however will lead to easier spread of fake screenshots. These are common for Twitter, so checking the source easily is valuable for verification.
Which is why links should always be there. No matter how shit a site may be, a link to the original source for authenticity should always exist.
Let’s do it!
Mark me down as a solid no. This is up to communities, it shouldn’t have anything to do with the instance.
I don’t use it, nor do I follow links there because they won’t work anyway. But just because I don’t see value in something doesn’t mean a community here won’t.
Well said!
Yeah. I’d encourage communities to do it, but not the instance itself.
In particular, there may be a community dedicated to pointing out the crazy shit Elon says, or laughing at various right-wing bootlickers. Those communities can’t really exist without linking to, or at least sharing images from Twitter. I see the value in those existing, even if they’re not somewhere I’d want to spend a lot of my time. Occasionally something is so hilarious or important that it might break through, and it couldn’t if those communities were effectively banned.
OTOH if various politics, football, gaming, etc. communities want to ban content from Twitter, I’d definitely encourage that. Even if it means that someone has to look a little harder for an alternate source for something they saw on Twitter, it’s worth it because it shows Twitter isn’t essential and gets people to move away.
I don’t really agree with the last one, and I wouldn’t implement it as a mod because I honestly don’t care that much. But a community should make those decisions, not an instance, provided they ensure the content fits with the other instance rules (no porn, etc).
This is my opinion, too.
I don’t think it needs banned, but I would be completely unfussed if it got banned. And I wholeheartedly support just downvoting the beans out of anything sourced from there in the meantime.
Instance level action is a last resort option. There is no reason to do anything about X at an instance level. Rules are primarily a community level thing.
Why I’m voting yes:
- Twitter links are unusable these days without an account and we shouldn’t encourage people to maintain non-federated social media accounts.
- It’s a breeding ground for hatred, bigotry, and since Musk took the reins Nazism.
- I just sincerely hate the site and hope it dies.
- No one posts links to there anyways.
Doesn’t it still show you the tweet and the account who made it without signing in? Or has it not even do that anymore?
Oh then I don’t even see why it’s a question then, what value does it bring Lemmy if we won’t even see anything
While I generally think such things should be community level as default, I’m fine with it if it happens.
I haven’t run across an x link in over a year that was worth clicking on. It’s a shitty site/service that’s turned into a festering pit of nastiness. It’s not something I feel strongly enough about to campaign for it being instance banned, but it’s already something I avoid.
Someone posted that there’s a service ‘xcancel’ that lets one view a tweet w/o an account or logging in. Just add ‘cancel’ after the ‘x’, eg. https://xcancel.com/…
Isn’t this just a nitter instance? I thought nitter died when twitter removed their free API…
No idea. However, it seemed to be working a few days ago, someone posted tweets there and one could view w/o hitting the main site.
Huh, it seems like Nitter is back from the dead. Several instances are back online, including xcancel.
I like this idea. Two things to clarify, although they may seem obvious.
- it should only apply to posts, not comments
- screenshots are fine
Otherwise it sounds good to me.
In your opinion, should “posts” include the body, or just the post URL?
Banned posts should include the URL, but screencaps should be okay. Twitter and all of social media needs to learn that if The Slime that leaked out of your parent’s/grandparent’s TV set now leaks out of the internet, we need a 1990’s-style lessening of regulations, except because the censorship is not wholly governments induced, we instead must add regulation specifically to prevent corporations from filtering content for advertising purposes. No more political ads, no targeted content, no more false copyright claims. All of it must be sued into oblivion, the profitability of the internet instantly torched, and a peer-to-peer Extended Reality federated network must rise from it’s ashes, or we will be doomed to a life like Brave New World but with 1984 surveillance.
I’m not sure. That could probably be left as a gray area, ultimately it will be up to individual moderators to remove these posts so maybe we leave that to their discretion.
Like if someone writes multiple paragraphs and they happen to link a tweet to help support what they’re saying, I think that’s fine. But if the body is just a link to a tweet to get around the ban, then obviously that should be removed.
I agree with both of these points.
I think this should be implemented on a community level and not on an instance level. As much as I don’t like twitter/x myself, it doesn’t mean we should be censoring everyone else.
Happy cake day!
And yes, I’m inclined to agree with you. Probably best implemented at a community level.
I don’t think an instance-level ban is necessary at this stage, ever since thinking more about it after a similar discussion on a .ml post.
What I’d much prefer to see is a move on the part of users to use alternate methods for sharing Twitter content: links to reputable archive services or alternate frontends for Twitter (I lack a lot of knowledge in this area, but xcancel stuff, whatever libredirect does, etc.), or screenshots. In this order. Sometimes something comes up in the Twitterverse that is worthy of sharing, where pointing to the source is important for verification. But there are steps that can satisfy that without necessarily direct linking to Twitter, or that being presented as the only access medium to other users.
I’d think about this more at the level of courtesy (or good sh.it.iquette, if you will) than a hard rule. Won’t get your comment/post deleted if there’s no community rule but will have someone jump in with a not-direct-to-Twitter link/pic and some light (I’d hope) ribbing.
I support any community that makes it a hard rule at the community level, though. And if it came to pass at the instance level it’s not like I’d leave sh.itjust.works over it - I can’t see Twitter posts anyway, just a log in screen.
The only value posting something that requires a login is when a bypass to that login is being provided.
Personally I would go so far as to ban links to any social media site that requires a login to even view the content linked.
But yes, banning Twitter links has plenty of other good reasons for it too.
I think that that is a good general rule that is flexible for future instances.
I’m fine with it.
Leave it to the communities.
Are Nitter links okay?
I am personally for blanket banning Twitter/Meta, yet I’d prefer it were up to Communities, even though I’d disagree with leaving it a choice personally. Out of respect for others with differing opinions on that, I don’t want to kill the forum either and being heavy handed could potentially.
I do see those types of services as a net negative on all of us by continuing to use them.
