Twitter is almost useless now unless you login with an account (that requires a phone number). I'm not sure who the subset of Tor users are who are comfortable logging into a service such as Twitter?
Use nitter.net to view twitter. Just http://nitter.net/username. It barely uses javascript (except if you want to watch video), no ads, no popups, no login, no "trending" section. Just the content of the person you're trying to read content from. All twitter links are replaced with nitter links, so navigation isn't an issue. Even if I had a Twitter account I'd use Nitter to browse. It's a lighter experience with no extra crap.
Oooh this is great, thank you. I've been wanting to set up something like this for quite a while and haven't really spent the time to figure out how I'd do it. Glad to have an option just land on my screen like this! Cheers :)
Also just realized there are one or two other services they could redirect (e.g. Medium -> scribe.rip). Will see if it's feasible for them to easily add...
thanks, i really like this. i've been using the ublock zapper to get around twitters obnoxious sign up wall.
i feel like websites like this, and archive.ph are a sign of the future web. very little or now javascript, very light and fast - it inspires me to want to build something again.
it's not a good solution tbh, it's like blocking html elements but on reload they come back. the zapper is integrated into ublock, if you click on the icon its there.
i think a better solution is blocking cookies as another comment mentioned, but for me that seems to cause an infinite reload loop.
It's a little relevant. Twitter limits what you can see when you're logged out now, and if Twitter were breached your personally identifying information could leak out and put you in a dangerous situation.
it's a little relevant if you're the person sharing sensitive information that the government is trying to suppress. And if you're doing that, then yeah, take steps to keep yourself safe.
if you're just trying to read information, like 99% of the people on twitter, then it's not really relevant. it's an unlikely hypothetical in the first place that twitter leaks those phone numbers, but no government is using phone numbers to hunt down consumers of information.
A surprising amount of timely information from public institutions (everything from road conditions to "it's not a real nuclear attack[0]") is often much more accessible via Twitter than anywhere else.
Which have terrible discovery compared to social media. Make a website about a hobby and you're unlikely to get many views. Post it on social media and you'll get way more
> We need to be in an international military crisis in order that basic values of privacy prevail at home? ... That does not speak well of our quiescent "western values"
It also doesn't speak ill of those values, it says nothing about the values. You're conflating two separate matters: the values, and the effort required to hold/protect them.
Liberty requires a persistent effort to maintain against politicians, malevolent actors generally, that lust after increased power (for themselves and frequently the state as well).
It makes sense that that would be a process of erosion and (hopefully) rejuvination across years, decades, generations, centuries - as the counter forces battle. If you're really fortunate you live in a system that makes it a lot more difficult for the power-seeking politicians to trample on your rights.
Just because something of value requires effort to keep or maintain, that doesn't debase its value or otherwise speak to how great or how little the value is. Very valuable things often require an enormous investment to acquire and keep over time. At all times entropy is trying to destroy well ordered systems (eg democratic, constitutional, rights-protecting governments), it takes a huge amount of resources just to forestall that and you can never stop investing into it for long.
It also takes an enormous investment of resources to maintain authoritarian, anti-rights systems. They can never stop using force to oppress the population, they have to constantly crush the spirit of the population. They have to divert human potential on a persistent basis toward destruction, oppression, violent actions against the citizenship, actions inspiring fear/terror/dread. They can never stop spewing propaganda meant to keep the population in check, docile, in fear, etc.
That systems require active effort and mental attention to maintain, tells you very little about whether they're good or bad, the same goes for values a person holds (which also require effort to maintain), or the values a culture of people broadly holds.
> Liberty requires a persistent effort to maintain against politicians, malevolent actors generally
Politicians do not in general work to abolish democracy. The vast majority, in democratic countries, accepts and supports it. To just label them "malevolent actors" without even feeling the need to explain it is nihilistic cynicism: if all you ever do is scream at the top of your lung that someone is a corrupt scumbag, they will either adapt and become someone like that or quit.
Thanks for a thoughtful reply adventured. As I said, it gives me an
uneasy/weird feeling, which is to say I haven't quite unpacked it
myself yet. Your response is helping me.
> It also doesn't speak ill of those values
Well actually it does, at least in that it highlights them as
inconsistent. Clearly my issue is that values prone to change
according to circumstance are weaker, as generally one holds
consistent values higher than fickle ones. However, your further
points are interesting and deserve thought.
> You're conflating two separate matters, the values, and the effort
required to hold/protect them.
Perhaps in a short, pithy comment I'm not taking time to distinguish
the values (which I love and live by, and believe most of my
countrymen uphold) and the laziness by which some fail to consistently
and robustly stand up for them.
> Liberty requires a persistent effort to maintain against politicians,
malevolent actors generally
Absolutely, and would you agree that we've slipped dreadfully in that
duty in recent years?
> Just because something of value requires effort to keep or maintain,
that doesn't debase its value or otherwise speak or how great or how
little the value is.
I am glad you think that, and we agree. I am not sure if you thought I
said otherwise?
> Very valuable things often require an enormous investment to acquire
and keep over time.
Like previous wars in which my family have fought at great cost.
> At all times entropy is trying to destroy well ordered systems
No. Sorry. That's too simplistic a take. I'm not talking about the
constant gardening required to maintain structures of value, I am
alluding to the malevolent domestic forces who would sell our hard won
freedom, democracy and liberal values down the swanny for their own
aggrandisement and profit when it suits them, and sing a different
song when virtue signalling calls.
Let me try to be clearer what I am attacking here. It is sloppy and
selective values. It is a laziness that lies somewhere between "sworn
enemies unite against a common foe", and a prejudiced framing effect.
We're all very happy to cheer on Tor, VPNs or other instruments that
circumvent tyranny, so long as it's not _our_ tyranny. All of us have
benefited hugely from the freedoms immanent therein. We built these
tools (US Navy), and the internet itself (DARPA), in pursuit of
spreading the same values that we no longer have the stomach to
robustly defend here.
Yet when a tyrant goes crazy in Overthereistan we're all sweetness
and light and our digital "doors are always open for freedom". Those
double standards are not a good look.
I need more time to think about it, but maybe what irks me here is
simple hypocrisy.
If most Tor traffic to your service is abuse where it may be worthwhile to block it completely, then a catastrophic event that gets more honest people using Tor may make it worthwhile to unblock it.
My site blocks tor nodes not because I hate privacy, but because the overwhelming majority of spammy / abusive content was posted over the tor network, and blocking tor improved the signal:noise ratio better than the best anti-spam tools :/
> We need to be in an international military crisis in order that basic values of privacy prevail at home?
Pretty much, yes. The US benefitted hugely from defining itself in opposition to the Soviet bloc during the Cold War. It's a major countervailing force to growing to resemble your opponent.
Arguably, the US hasn't really figured out how to effectively define itself in opposition to China, given how liberally China has been copying parts of the US economic playbook (ie. "Capitalism with Chinese characteristics"), which itself is a trick the Soviets never managed.
Tried it two times in last six months. Once via the Android app and the second time on the website on my laptop. Both accounts were blocked after less than 15 minutes without even doing anything (except following a few accounts which Twitter suggested based on my interests... [0]). Both times they wanted a phone number to unlock.
I tried to contact the support, but they never responded.
[0] different accounts, based on different interests
It's getting even better. I just logged into one of the suspended accounts. Pretty much everything is locked, but without any information about the suspension. It's pretty much "Oops, something went wrong. Please try again later." on everything.
Ok, let's try it with the "Twitter privacy policy inquiries" form (while logged in). Nope, can't submit anything, because of the suspension. So why not have some fun? Just sent a GDPR request via the "suspension appeal" form. Why? For the lulz and to have some legal leverage.
Not even five minutes passed and I got a email. My account is not suspended anymore... WTF twitter?
Whom do you trust your identity with more? Twitter or the regime you're under?
As much as I despise Twitter, I'd much rather that they exclusively know my identity than both they and the regime. This isn't to say that I agree with Twitter requiring phone numbers.
Twitter is not a "leftist organization". Contrary to the belief of the somewhat unhinged, there's no conservative-hating conspiracy of tech giants, which are on the whole not particularly left-leaning where it counts. There are absolutely conservatives on Twitter; there have always been and it remains that way now.
Twitter literally banned the sitting President of the United States, a Republican. Other Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene have had their accounts banned, while this has never happened to a Democrat. People were banned for questioning COVID (e.g. the lab leak hypothesis), banned for questioning the 2020 Presidential election's integrity (yet nobody was banned for speculating on Russian interference and calling Trump illegitimate in 2016), banned for misgendering or deadnaming transgenders. Conveniently all the wrongthink that fall squarely in opposition to progressive ideology.
I don't think anyone believes there's a secret conspiracy, it's more that the type of people who work in programming, and particularly for a Bay Area company like Twitter, tend to be very progressive. It's the same miasma that clouds the mainstream media, academia, and now most corporate PR.
