Viewing Tweets

[ysabetwordsmith]

Twitter now requires an account to view tweets. If you aren't logged in, you can't see any tweets.

Comments

[vriddy]

I hope they roll back that change, though it may be hopeless. A lot of organisations had kind of moved to using Twitter as a news feed, and having that closed now really sucks... How I wish for RSS to become prevalent again, haha.

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>I hope they roll back that change, though it may be hopeless.<<

Twitter seems determined to burn itself to the ground.

>> A lot of organisations had kind of moved to using Twitter as a news feed, and having that closed now really sucks... <<

It's been a serious problem long since; I linked to articles last year about how hard it hit the disabled community.

What we really need is for someone who can code to make a service similar to old Twitter but not evil. And now we also need a replacement too. Shit like this is why I backed the Fujoshi Guide even though I can't code: to help other people make stuff.

>>How I wish for RSS to become prevalent again, haha.<<

That would be good. You can get RSS feeds on Dreamwidth. The problem is, finding RSS feeds here. There's only a list by popularity -- not alphabetical, not searchable by title or topic.

[illariy]

Jumping in that yes, I, too, would love a renaissance of RSS! :D

That was so convenient.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

DW has a list of available feeds here:
https://www.dreamwidth.org/feeds/list

Regrettably it only appears based on readership, not alphabetically, and there's no way to search it. But at least you can see what some popular ones are.

What would really help is having someone to post recommended RSS feeds on Dreamwidth via followfriday or even create a community about RSS feeds.

Re: Thoughts

[illariy]

Ooooh, thank you for that link!

I moreso meant RSS feeds in a dedicated reader, though. I used to use Vienna but then went back to checking blogs and Twitter accounts manually.

IIRC, paid DW users could make new RSS feeds but I am not sure, maybe I misremember. Hm.

Yeah, a comm like that or posts on followfriday would be very useful!

Re: Thoughts

[vriddy]

I've made new feeds before getting a paid account, free users can create them too :)

Re: Thoughts

[illariy]

Oh, I didn't know that, that is very cool! Thanks for the info and the link! :D

Re: Thoughts

[vriddy]

You're very welcome :D

Re: Thoughts

[vriddy]

There's also dw_feed_promo! I'm trying to be better about announcing new feeds I create over there.

Re: Thoughts

[illariy]

Oh, what a great comm! I went and subscribed right away ;-)

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

Thank you so much! I didn't know about that. I have subscribed.

I also made a post about feeds.

Re: Thoughts

[vriddy]

Awesome!!

[vriddy]

Hear, hear!! :)

[illariy]

Yeah, I found that out the hard way yesterday. I have been reading Twitter for years (maybe 8 years, maybe more) without ever creating an account.

I don't know yet if I want this change to push me into making an account or if I'll just go without.

I think this just goes to show that they are getting desperate.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Yeah, I found that out the hard way yesterday. <<

Bummer.

>>I have been reading Twitter for years (maybe 8 years, maybe more) without ever creating an account.<<

I imagine many people have done that. I never read it regularly but did come across tweets in some of my searches online. I wonder if they remembered to make their service unsearchable. If not, tweets are so short that the entirety could appear that way.

>>I don't know yet if I want this change to push me into making an account or if I'll just go without.<<

Up to you, but a lot of folks are looking for other platforms because they resent Twitter's current behavior.

Ideally, somegeek will code up a replacement that serves the same needs without being so evil. Every company's fuckup is an opportunity for their competitors to grab market share.

>>I think this just goes to show that they are getting desperate.<<

True, but I think they will find that making demands of people you've already annoyed is unlikely to get what you want.

Re: Thoughts

[illariy]

Yeah, I think many people only read and never create an account or post. Sometimes, I see a new account making a reference to reading without an account for a long time and then finally joining in.

I was aware of the semi-recent Mastodon migration but regrettably, I thought about writing down anyone's handle in the Fediverse that I came across but I never followed through with that plan and now I have to rely in Google to find those who have a Fediverse account. It sucks.

True, but I think they will find that making demands of people you've already annoyed is unlikely to get what you want.

Very true! Some months back, they only let anonymous readers view very few tweets before having to log in. Back then, I just checked the site more frequently so I could still view almost all tweets. Eventually, they went back on that change so therefore, I'll stick this one out for some weeks before I make any more decisions. I am guessing that once I manage to find any one person's Mastodon account of the people I usually follow, it'll be much easier to find the rest because by and large, they know each other well. I am guessing that most people won't bother making an account especially not if they have been following recent Twitter criticism.

I think search engines could at least find certain Twitter users, I don't know about entire post history.

possible workaround, for now?

[a_flyleaf]

At the time of writing, Nitter, “a free and open source alternative Twitter front-end focused on privacy and performance,” still works.

Full disclaimers: it’s been pretty shaky as of all the recent changes (including the member-lock, which broke it entirely for a few days), it won’t show adult-locked content, and saving anything from it to the Internet Archive is hit-or-miss. This page on GitHub lists alternate instances (essentially the same website, different hosts/URLs), in case nitter.net fails, but I will be pleasantly surprised if Nitter still functions at all several months from now >_>"