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Ephera ,

I thought about this recently with Instagram, when I got linked there as the 'official' information page for an event. I could see the post with the general information, but couldn't read the comments to see if any more information or clarifications had been posted.

That was an event, where the organizers obviously wanted as many people as possible to show up, and Instagram was doing them a disservice in that. I wasn't going to sign up to Instagram to view those comments. And my parents couldn't sign up to Instagram. It's too complex for them.

Twitter has been gone for the non-Nitter using general public for a while. So, at this point, if you're not a techy, where can you still publicly post information? TikTok, I think? YouTube, I guess. Mastodon would be an option, but it's verging on being too unknown for non-techies, as does BlueSky.

We've gone from a time where everyone and their mother could publicly announce things on the internet, to a pretty big vacuum.
It's going to be interesting what fills this space. Theoretically, even personal webpages might have a bit of a comeback.

Aqarius ,

I don't see the problem with mastodon, people without accounts can't reply, but it can still be used as a message board. It's not much different from linking to a wordpress blog.

atrielienz ,

Most things haven't moved over there from xitter. So if I want to follow an author, a band, an event, or even a theatre or other venue, I have to rely on bot accounts reposting from xitter, which assumes that I even know how to do that. It isn't something my mom will do without instructions, and even then it's not something she's likely to check or keep up with because it is not as intuitive.

The place does not have the followers to convince entities like I mentioned above to move there or upkeep accounts there. The TLA isn't out there posting bookings and upcoming events/cancellations on Mastadon.

Aqarius ,

If you're a customer, sure. But if you're a seller, it's about as handy for the basic "I need some form of web presence but don't wanna make and upkeep a website" use case, which facebook, instagram and twitter are increasingly failing at.

atrielienz ,

So, honestly these businesses go where the people are and Mastadon also doesn't have the userbase of xitter.or Facebook even in their decline. My kids school doesn't update delayed openings on Mastadon. Because most kids, and a whole lot of adults aren't on there.

Businesses weren't advertising on Facebook when it was "theFacebook.com". It took a while to gain a userbase that was beneficial to businesses and entities to post there and maintain accounts.

Aaron ,

My kids school doesn't update delayed openings on Mastadon. Because most kids, and a whole lot of adults aren't on there.

They don't have to stop posting there. They can do both.

atrielienz ,

They could, but I pretty much guarantee they won't because most school admins have never even heard of mastadon.

Ephera ,

Yeah, for those viewing a link, it definitely works. I meant that it's too unknown for the non-techies that would want to publicly post something.

Which isn't to say, they've never heard of it, but well, if you're not excited about technology, it's likely at least an hour of work, to figure out how everything works. If they know people who are already on such a platform, they're more willing to invest that much work.

HarkMahlberg ,
@HarkMahlberg@kbin.social avatar

I wish I could find the article, but when Musk first started breaking shit and locking everything down, local meteorological accounts realized people could start missing important public information like tsunami and earthquake warnings, and they had no other way to reach the public than through Twitter.

Twitter being accessible only via direct links to tweets is still not an acceptable solution, because how would I know what the URL is for the latest Icelandic volcano warning (for example)?

Ross_audio ,

As a public, we've gone back to the days when the internet was a techies platform.

The difference now is it's a techies platform Vs. a corporate platform.

The more convenient FOSS social media is, the less techie it will be, and the closer we'll get back to the more open internet for all.

Until then we have an open internet for techies alone.

HelloHotel ,
@HelloHotel@lemmy.world avatar

Thats really insightfull.

antonim ,

Unironically Facebook is fairly reliable for what you're describing. It nags you with a login popup regularly, but beyond that everything important is readable even without an account.

Ephera ,

Huh. I don't think, I've ever seen a public post on Facebook, but that's probably the case, because I've rarely ever intentionally clicked on a Facebook link...

Salix ,

For me, after scrolling just a bit, it always pop up asking me to log in and no longer lets me scroll on the page anymore. It happens to me on both mobile and desktop.

It's really annoying when trying to look at events or business pages.

EssentialCoffee ,

Not really. There's a lot I don't see and can't access without having a FB account. It's been like that for years.

MrMcGasion ,

Honestly, let's bring geocities back (not exactly in that form). Anything that isn't a throwaway post on social media goes there, and you can post links to it from all the social platforms for reaching a broader audience. Then there's a place for getting the most up to date information about an event, that doesn't require making an account, and the person putting the event on doesn't have to make sure posts across multiple platforms are updated with the same new information.

Ephera ,

There's Neocities: https://neocities.org/

Pair it with an own domain name and it's a perfectly valid personal homepage.

Kit ,

I've never once used Twitter, Instagram, or anything of the sort. I get by just fine without it. I learn about events the old fashioned way: Word of mouth, and posters hung in public spaces. Many places still use email blasts as well. It's a bit head scratching for me to read these comments hailing Twitter as some sort of irreplaceable necessity in life.

Ephera ,

Well, I'm not saying that it's a necessity. Usually, it's not a necessity to hold or attend those events in the first place.

But that does not mean that people don't deeply want it. I've been part of the orga team for a larger event before and that was our biggest concern: If anything happens that makes it impossible to hold the event, how in the fuck do you tell people to not come?

We did have a whole homepage specifically for this event and, to be fair, the answer was still generally that you don't. People won't subscribe to your RSS feed or regularly check the webpage. Unless a catastrophe happens, you have to keep to the time and place. But if we could reach even just 20% of people in case of a catastrophe, that would have still been massively helpful.

Aaron ,

Mobilizon is the Fedi version of Facebook groups/Meetup.

TrueStoryBob ,

I'll have to check that out. I help run a secular humanist group and we've been trying to get away from Facebook for event planning. More than a few of our members (myself included) aren't on Facebook and/or aren't active there anymore. Might be a good alternative.

Aaron ,

Yes I'm starting to migrate a local organization as well. Currently we are on Meetup. I just added us on Mobilizon. I am only advertising publicly for Mobilizon but people can still find us on Meetup if they look there. They just added a Meetup integration also so it's fairly effortless.

nintendiator ,

So, at this point, if you’re not a techy, where can you still publicly post information? TikTok, I think?

TikTok or any such other crap is not publicly.

It takes like, $0 and a cup of coffee at most to start a simple page in neocities for a simple announcement. Heck, in the absolutely simplest cases available you can literally upload your own announcement (a picture, a PDF or smth) to ufile.io and just pass around the link to that.

Capitao_Duarte ,
@Capitao_Duarte@lemmy.eco.br avatar

Man, I mixed Nitter and Ninite and was in absolute horror

HelloHotel ,
@HelloHotel@lemmy.world avatar

Whats Ninite?

Capitao_Duarte ,
@Capitao_Duarte@lemmy.eco.br avatar

It's a website that lets you select many apps you use in a daly basis and makes a single installer for them all. Very useful if you're always formatting your pc

JTskulk ,

Windows crap that Linux distros have had for literally decades.

Reddfugee42 ,

Ouch, I cut myself on your edge 😢

cophater69 ,

Linux doesn't have Edge.

trk ,
@trk@aussie.zone avatar

I run Edge using WINE

Emerald ,

Not true.

https://itsfoss.com/microsoft-edge-linux/

It is officially avaliable for linux

aniki ,

That's just gross. I wonder how many installs it actually has.

JTskulk ,

I was edging, but this comment pushed me over the edge to completion. Thank you.

aniki ,

all the xbox kids are mad that their spyware OS is falling behind the latest decade+ in modern computing.

How are those docker containers in windows again? A fucking tragedy?

BonesOfTheMoon ,

I didn't use Twitter for a decade but occasionally still read my feed until fuckface took over, and then deleted it. But the other day I wondered if someone I knew of who was palliative is still alive so I googled his Twitter, and for some reason they had mercy and let me see he is indeed still living, albeit really incapacitated. So thanks for not being shitty for one second Twitter, and now I hope you die off as a platform and are replaced by the fediverse.

ProtecyaTec ,

What a poor name for a social media platform.

clot27 ,
@clot27@lemm.ee avatar

Elon can go fuck himself

elonmusk ,

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    Good_morning ,

    Probably one of the easiest bettlejuicing accounts around these days I'd wager

    Gsus4 ,
    @Gsus4@mander.xyz avatar

    it's ok, twitter will shut down after the US election anyway...

    ICastFist ,
    @ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

    I wish...

    bitwolf ,

    If Twitter succeeds in becoming a super app. Wouldn't they then become a "platform" in EU terms? Thus requiring them to interoperate?

    morrowind OP ,
    @morrowind@lemmy.ml avatar

    Isn't there a requirement for number of users as well? It's not really growing right now

    Archer ,

    taps side of head

    Can’t fall under EU gatekeeper regulations if you don’t have users

    thantik ,

    And nothing of value was lost.

    muelltonne ,

    There are still local governments or police forces announcing important things via Twitter. There are still interesting and smart people posting there. There are all those "legacy" accounts which are not active anymore, but have valuable content. Nitter was the last way to read this and this is now lost.

    harry_balzac ,

    If they were truly smart they wouldn't be on a site run by a narcissistic right wing billionaire with breeding fantasies that's turned it into a fascist echo chamber rife with CSAM, antisemitism, and disinformation.

    Jtotheb , (edited )

    If Stephen King wants to share his accumulated wisdom for free with millions of readers, hopeful artists, random people on the street who’ve never heard of him, what is the best way to reach them? Start a blog that will never show up in any search results behind the pages of machine-generated SEO junk about how they have answers for “Stephen King blog”, right? Because then he had zero impact but retains the moral high ground.

    kilgore_trout ,
    @kilgore_trout@feddit.it avatar

    People talk where people are.

    HarkMahlberg ,
    @HarkMahlberg@kbin.social avatar

    I wish network effects weren't a self fulfilling prophecy.

    FlyingSquid ,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    Okay, but they are on that site, which is why Nitter has been so useful.

    SpaceCowboy ,
    @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca avatar

    It's not so simple. A lot of people aren't there because they like Elon Musk, they're there because people they like having discussions with are there. And those people are there for the same reason.

    It's sort of like a phone company that doesn't allow customers that are on other phone companies. You have to be on the same phone company as your fiends or you can't call them. You can't change to another phone company because you won't be able to call your friends anymore. You'd be stuck because the phone company owns your ability to connect to other people. They own your contacts list.

    Fortunately there's regulations to prevent phone companies from doing this, they are required to interconnect. This means you can change to another phone company, and many places you can keep your phone number, so you can do this without your friends even knowing.

    There are no such regulations for social media. So Elon Musk bought people's contact lists on Twitter. People can't change platforms because Elon Musk owns people's ability to connect with other people. And because contacts aren't closed groups (people don't have all the same contacts as each other) it's basically impossible to organize an effort where everyone moves to another platform. That would involve organizing nearly everyone on the platform to do it at the same time. It's not really all that feasible to organize hundreds of millions of people that don't really agree with each other on anything to abandon a platform all at once.

    But there's been a steady decline in users since Musk took over. Eventually maybe another platform will reach critical mass and there could be a massive number of people go to that platform. Happened with Myspace, Digg, etc. But really social media platfroms should be required by law to interoperate so if a company is well run there's less of a barrier to entry for another company to step in and take over. But that would be something like free market capitalism, and the heads of corporations don't actually want that despite what they say.

    brbposting ,

    True intelligence demands specific moral cost-benefit calculations?

    long_chicken_boat ,

    I totally agree on the usefulness of Nitter, but hell, imagine following your police force on social media. Like they don't have enough with oppressing you, they also want to feed you their bullshit.

    Speculater , (edited )
    @Speculater@lemmy.world avatar

    Oh no

    Edit: Jesus people, /s
    Y'all are dense sometimes.

    antonim ,

    That's not how sarcasm works.

    Speculater ,
    @Speculater@lemmy.world avatar

    It's literally the first half of a meme, "Oh no, so anyway."

    Aaron ,

    I think the part you're missing is that Nitter is actually a valuable service to some of us.

    sir_reginald ,
    @sir_reginald@lemmy.world avatar

    everyone got your "sarcasm". you're the one being dense here. Nitter was a useful tool for those who have left twitter but needed to access information posted there. It didn't benefit Twitter in anyway, so there was 0 downsides in using it.

    the fact that you make fun of a useful community tool shutting down is why you're deservedly being downvoted to hell

    drmoose ,

    it still could be made working with using real logins for scraping which can be a bit illegal but if you do it on your personal instance it would be more than enough. I'm not sure, maybe nitter already supports this instead of guest tokens?

    xthexder ,
    @xthexder@l.sw0.com avatar

    There's nothing illegal about breaking Twitter terms of service. You might get banned, but that's it.

    drmoose ,

    That would be in it in ideal world but Twitter can sue you for damages as you explicitly agree with ToS in most countries especially US. There's enough precedence when it comes to "login" scraping in the US that you'd most likely lose (though probably not a massive payout)

    Twitter is unlikely to bother with small non-commercial scrapers but I wouldn't risk attaching any tracable info even for small personal projects.

    morrowind OP ,
    @morrowind@lemmy.ml avatar

    Yes I believe it could, though we'll see if the devs are willing to keep supporting it

    irotsoma ,
    @irotsoma@lemmy.world avatar

    I wish people would just abandon X. Nitter was just extending the inevitable. They don't want any of us, only fascists. Let them have their own place and leave the rest of us out of it. Better for law enforcement if all the wannabe terrorists are all in one place anyway.

    loomi ,

    With Tesla’s stock price dropping 12% the person who might be forced to give up Twitter is Musk. His purchase was secured with Tesla stock.

    TwoGems ,
    @TwoGems@lemmy.world avatar

    Plus if it goes bankrupt he won't be in control of it from what I gather. People seem way too addicted to it to leave though.

    KingThrillgore ,
    @KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml avatar

    I am certain much of the Nitter use is to access 18+ stuff, and if the artists want to keep their incomes protected, they'll go to Fanbox or Fansly when their users can't use Nitter for easy wankbait.

    lone_faerie ,

    I wish less people used Twitter. Like my city exclusively communicates through Twitter

    ALostInquirer ,

    They're not also locked into Facebook? It seems like far too many public services communicate through these non-public platforms (i.e. often more easily viewed or sometimes only viewable with an account).

    stratosfear ,

    To be fair, before all this nonsense, this is what made Twitter unique and important. Twitter was the one way through social media "the average Joe" could be heard on the public stage. No normal person is getting time on the news.

    Because of its short format the message had to be simple and concise, which made it special in the social media space. Someone saying something about a current event and then the "semi-democratization" process of being shared and liked or whatever the mechanism was (never was a user), and that message then making it into the news media, was a good thing. It actually was an opportunity for normal people to have a voice. And not just for Americans but for people in other countries who have even less of a voice.

    Which is why the current events are so ironic, all of that being ruined, in the name of the billionaire morons claim of "free speech platform." He couldn't even see the perspective I'm coming from because he has a path to the public stage.

    https://youtu.be/CcSh2F8e__8

    M0oP0o ,
    @M0oP0o@mander.xyz avatar

    What the shit is/was Nitter? Sorry I can't seem to keep up.

    wewbull ,

    A way of reading twitter posts without needing to go to twitter. Particularly useful since you now need an account to see twitter posts.

    M0oP0o ,
    @M0oP0o@mander.xyz avatar

    Thanks, I guess I never tried reading a twit post to learn of the issue.

    JohnDClay ,

    It was also helpful for getting links to Twitter pics and vids to embed here.

    Aaron ,

    It's a private front-end service. So you can see Twitter posts without logging in or giving them your data. They obviously don't like that.

    sag ,
    @sag@lemm.ee avatar

    Now, I have to make a Xhitter account to see some comics. Some one donate me some copium.

    Aaron ,

    I tried to create one recently but there is now a fucking gauntlet of captchas and puzzles you have to solve to create an account.

    Same goes for Google now.

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