7 ms·

X sends in the lawyers to shut down open source project

89 points by giamma 22d ago

christkv 21d ago
Same strategy as Reddit seems data has too much monetary value
nephihaha 22d ago
Wish I'd known about this years ago.
giamma 22d ago
Possible alternative? https://twitterwebviewer.com/ https://twitterwebviewer.com/
- rwmj 21d ago
  Also sotwe.com although you need to filter your javascript pretty heavily to use it safely.
- quaintdev 21d ago
  At this point just ditch Twitter.
2OEH8eoCRo0 21d ago
Scraping is legal. It's amazing how much these companies benefit from scraping but don't want others to do it.
- inigyou 21d ago
  Sending a C&D ordering someone to stop doing a legal thing is also legal.
- codingdave 21d ago
  Civil law is not centered around what is or is not legal. It is about resolving problems that fall outside of criminal law. It is a completely different set of procedures and approach to the law.
- Someone1234 21d ago
  From my understanding scraping a public website you'd otherwise have access to is legal in the US. However, re-hosting that scrapped copyright content, particularly if it isn't transformative/fair-use (inc. only partial content) is very much either violates copyright, or best case is legally a gray area. Google got dragged into court for exactly this, and they were summarizing/snipping, so they had a fair-use argument to make. This is a 1:1 reproduction of the content, so the legal arguments on fair-use would be harder to make I suspect. I've personally used XCancel, and I really like it, but stepping back legally they're on shaky ground if Twitter decides to stop it.
  - pwdisswordfishs 21d ago
    AFAIK, to date Twitter hasn't required its users agree to a copyright assignment or an exclusive license to the content of their tweets, so it wouldn't be a copyright suit. Twitter wouldn't have standing to bring suit, as that would be reserved for the actual copyright holders, i.e. Twitter's userbase.
- jcranmer 21d ago
  -ish. A lot of legal issues are heavily based on the particular circumstances, so a general statement like "scraping is legal" summarizing the results of hiQ v LinkedIn is a gross oversimplification of the actual findings of said case. In general, the cases where scraping has been found to be legal have largely turned on the basis of things like accessing the public parts of the website and attempting to minimize potential copyright violation. Here, these services are bypassing a login requirement and reproducing the scraped data in full--actions that have generally led to findings of illegality in the past. It's not a slam-dunk case in either direction, and I think the result would come down more to the quality of the lawyers to craft their arguments. And SpaceX has the cash right now to afford the better lawyers.
Good4boothee 21d ago
Main discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49437283 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49437283 And I still can't go over how this title looks like draft version with placeholder, published a bit too fast. How could anyone thing a single letter is good choice for an company/service name?
- close04 21d ago
  > How could anyone thing a single letter is good choice for an company/service name In this case, Musk is stuck being his 12 year old self and carrying a 30 year old obsession to use this very cool naming for his "everything company", after losing that name along with him leaving PayPal. He finally got the chance.
a4isms 21d ago
Not that it matters, but my use case for Nitter and XCancel was to provide a link to accompany a screen shot when discussing a tweet on Mastodon. Now I'lll just use a screen shot, there is zero chance I will send them direct traffic of any kind.
ChrisArchitect 21d ago
[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49437283 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49437283
zetanor 21d ago
It's both funny and sad that despite several malicious actions like this, despite wasting a ton of Twitter's social capital and despite years of broken promises (e.g., dealing with bots, bringing back free speech, ending algo/report manipulation), none of the writers and artists whose work I enjoy have even attempted to move away. I mostly just read there, but presumably posters feel bound to their social network. Maybe the site really was worth $44B.
- voidfunc 21d ago
  What I find even more amusing is that all the people that screech about how much they hate Elon, Trump, Conservatives etc. They also still basically only use Twitter err X. The network effect is hard to pull away from especially when you realize nobody is listening elsewhere.
  - PaulHoule 21d ago
    You can't underestimate the power of two-sided networks. Every day "Ask HN" people underestimate the difficulty of starting a new community platform by orders of magnitude. And no matter how you mismanage a platform it's close to impossible to kill.
  - majorchord 21d ago
    To me I find it's usually not worth my time to interact or even read most social media commentary at all because most opinions I find on there are quite often ridiculous, misguided or just plain dangerous... and most of the time nobody is interested in any other perspectives, they just want to be "right" and only listen to things that stroke their existing confirmation bias. Anything that challenges their existing view is treated like you're a Salem witch and everyone piles on with their own garbage. I don't blame social media itself though like a lot of people do... to me the bigger issue is lack of education and moral standards. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX3EZCVj2XA&t=289s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX3EZCVj2XA&t=289s
- Always42 21d ago
  You’re alluding that others shouldn’t use the site, but you still do? You need an account to read there don’t you?
tamimio 21d ago
Seeing all companies are hellbent to have all users logged in with accounts, it means they definitely integrated these accounts to some centralized database in the US or plantir aggregator to accurately track any, or basically ban them and remove them from any social media interaction. I have to warn that this gatekeeping is coming to non social media platforms as well, including your own blog, since you can’t control the domain names. It’s also hilarious how hypocritical these tech companies, meta steal and sell users data and sue a company for scraping, xitter send C&D letters, AI companies are building models from stolen books and sometimes even physically destroying them, then lecture others when their models get distilled, basically: rules for thee and not for me.
galoisscobi 21d ago
If XCancel is gone then I'm cancelling X. I don't need to read what people have to say on that website.
bilsbie 21d ago
A long time ago twitter had built in rss feeds. No need to scrape.
OhNoNotAgain_99 21d ago
[dead]
deleted 21d ago
[deleted]

89 points by giamma 22d ago

christkv 21d ago

Same strategy as Reddit seems data has too much monetary value

nephihaha 22d ago

Wish I'd known about this years ago.

giamma 22d ago

Possible alternative? https://twitterwebviewer.com/ https://twitterwebviewer.com/

rwmj 21d ago
Also sotwe.com although you need to filter your javascript pretty heavily to use it safely.
quaintdev 21d ago
At this point just ditch Twitter.

2OEH8eoCRo0 21d ago

Scraping is legal. It's amazing how much these companies benefit from scraping but don't want others to do it.

inigyou 21d ago
Sending a C&D ordering someone to stop doing a legal thing is also legal.
codingdave 21d ago
Civil law is not centered around what is or is not legal. It is about resolving problems that fall outside of criminal law. It is a completely different set of procedures and approach to the law.
Someone1234 21d ago
From my understanding scraping a public website you'd otherwise have access to is legal in the US. However, re-hosting that scrapped copyright content, particularly if it isn't transformative/fair-use (inc. only partial content) is very much either violates copyright, or best case is legally a gray area. Google got dragged into court for exactly this, and they were summarizing/snipping, so they had a fair-use argument to make. This is a 1:1 reproduction of the content, so the legal arguments on fair-use would be harder to make I suspect. I've personally used XCancel, and I really like it, but stepping back legally they're on shaky ground if Twitter decides to stop it.
- pwdisswordfishs 21d ago
  AFAIK, to date Twitter hasn't required its users agree to a copyright assignment or an exclusive license to the content of their tweets, so it wouldn't be a copyright suit. Twitter wouldn't have standing to bring suit, as that would be reserved for the actual copyright holders, i.e. Twitter's userbase.
jcranmer 21d ago
-ish. A lot of legal issues are heavily based on the particular circumstances, so a general statement like "scraping is legal" summarizing the results of hiQ v LinkedIn is a gross oversimplification of the actual findings of said case. In general, the cases where scraping has been found to be legal have largely turned on the basis of things like accessing the public parts of the website and attempting to minimize potential copyright violation. Here, these services are bypassing a login requirement and reproducing the scraped data in full--actions that have generally led to findings of illegality in the past. It's not a slam-dunk case in either direction, and I think the result would come down more to the quality of the lawyers to craft their arguments. And SpaceX has the cash right now to afford the better lawyers.

Good4boothee 21d ago

Main discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49437283 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49437283 And I still can't go over how this title looks like draft version with placeholder, published a bit too fast. How could anyone thing a single letter is good choice for an company/service name?

close04 21d ago
> How could anyone thing a single letter is good choice for an company/service name In this case, Musk is stuck being his 12 year old self and carrying a 30 year old obsession to use this very cool naming for his "everything company", after losing that name along with him leaving PayPal. He finally got the chance.

a4isms 21d ago

Not that it matters, but my use case for Nitter and XCancel was to provide a link to accompany a screen shot when discussing a tweet on Mastodon. Now I'lll just use a screen shot, there is zero chance I will send them direct traffic of any kind.

ChrisArchitect 21d ago

[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49437283 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49437283

zetanor 21d ago

It's both funny and sad that despite several malicious actions like this, despite wasting a ton of Twitter's social capital and despite years of broken promises (e.g., dealing with bots, bringing back free speech, ending algo/report manipulation), none of the writers and artists whose work I enjoy have even attempted to move away. I mostly just read there, but presumably posters feel bound to their social network. Maybe the site really was worth $44B.

voidfunc 21d ago
What I find even more amusing is that all the people that screech about how much they hate Elon, Trump, Conservatives etc. They also still basically only use Twitter err X. The network effect is hard to pull away from especially when you realize nobody is listening elsewhere.
- PaulHoule 21d ago
  You can't underestimate the power of two-sided networks. Every day "Ask HN" people underestimate the difficulty of starting a new community platform by orders of magnitude. And no matter how you mismanage a platform it's close to impossible to kill.
- majorchord 21d ago
  To me I find it's usually not worth my time to interact or even read most social media commentary at all because most opinions I find on there are quite often ridiculous, misguided or just plain dangerous... and most of the time nobody is interested in any other perspectives, they just want to be "right" and only listen to things that stroke their existing confirmation bias. Anything that challenges their existing view is treated like you're a Salem witch and everyone piles on with their own garbage. I don't blame social media itself though like a lot of people do... to me the bigger issue is lack of education and moral standards. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX3EZCVj2XA&t=289s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX3EZCVj2XA&t=289s
Always42 21d ago
You’re alluding that others shouldn’t use the site, but you still do? You need an account to read there don’t you?

tamimio 21d ago

Seeing all companies are hellbent to have all users logged in with accounts, it means they definitely integrated these accounts to some centralized database in the US or plantir aggregator to accurately track any, or basically ban them and remove them from any social media interaction. I have to warn that this gatekeeping is coming to non social media platforms as well, including your own blog, since you can’t control the domain names. It’s also hilarious how hypocritical these tech companies, meta steal and sell users data and sue a company for scraping, xitter send C&D letters, AI companies are building models from stolen books and sometimes even physically destroying them, then lecture others when their models get distilled, basically: rules for thee and not for me.

galoisscobi 21d ago

If XCancel is gone then I'm cancelling X. I don't need to read what people have to say on that website.

bilsbie 21d ago

A long time ago twitter had built in rss feeds. No need to scrape.

OhNoNotAgain_99 21d ago

[dead]

deleted 21d ago

[deleted]