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Twitter is Just Randomly Deleting People's Lists -- and No One Knows Why (theregister.co.uk)

Posted by msmash on from the unexplained-changes dept.

Twitter has silently, and without warning, deleted reams of lists users have spent months curating. These lists are used by journalists, activists, and loads of other people, to organize and manage twits they follow and aggregate their tweets, links, photos, and videos, reports The Register. From the article: They are, in a way, personalized RSS feeds of information from the Twitter firehose. For the past several days, though, lists have been disappearing from folks' profiles with no notification, and no explanation from Twitter thus far. Some private, or locked, lists have been made public. Among those impacted by the cockup is Australian freelance journalist and Cryptoparty founder Asher Wolf, who said the issue appears to be tied those who use the mobile Twitter App. Switching to different platforms doesn't help, however.

17 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. They're just giving people a helping hand... by jez9999 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ... to move over to Gab. They've seen the writing on the wall.

    --
    == Jez ==
    Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
    1. Re:They're just giving people a helping hand... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Say what you want, but the so-called "conservative" or "right wing" discussion forums tend to be the most open places where real, unfettered discussion can be held.

      It's the left-leaning discussion forums, like Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Hacker News and Stack Overflow that, in my opinion, are the least open and least conductive to anything resembling real discussion.

      Despite being called "conservative", people on the right tend to value free expression for all, even when it involves ideas that they don't agree with. They find the concepts of censorship, content moderation and banning people to be abhorrent concepts, and won't even subject their opponents to such things.

      Meanwhile, it's the so-called "tolerant" leftists that engage in censorship, whether it's overt censorship through the deletion of content and banning of users/customers, or whether it's causing indirect self-censorship through threats of harm to the reputations or bodies of anyone they disagree with.

      It isn't right wingers who want to limit what people can express thanks to "political correctness". It isn't right wingers who want to block content they dislike. It isn't right wingers who want to ban users who they disagree with. It's leftists who engage in such behavior.

      The political right promotes free and open discussion of all ideas. The political left tries to shut down all expression that doesn't conform to their very narrow world view and narrative.

    2. Re:They're just giving people a helping hand... by mikael · · Score: 2

      This time it would appear to be a genuine SNAFU with their servers. But it may also be a social experiment to see how the population reacts when their mailing lists are disrupted.

      Like the way LinkedIn experiments with people by inserting fake messages into their personal communications or "recommended articles".

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    3. Re:They're just giving people a helping hand... by spun · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't believe anything like that is happening. That's some seriously paranoid conspiracy theory crap.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    4. Re: They're just giving people a helping hand... by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 2

      Here's a little hint: INT.

      Integer? International? The Intergovernmental Treaty TLD? The World Fuel Services Corporation? The Institue for Nuclear Theory? Intermittant Needle Therapy? Intelligence? We could use more of that...

    5. Re:They're just giving people a helping hand... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Gab is not an open discussion forum. It actively bans left leaning accounts. It even blocks them from its Twitter feed. Like PewTube, it's building a right-wing echo chamber by censoring dissenting opinions.

      This is all a matter of public record, you can verify it yourself and don't have to take my word for it.

      These supposedly free-speech loving sites, set up specifically to be permissive, always seem to quickly end up banning anything they don't like on some flimsy excuse.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    6. Re:They're just giving people a helping hand... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 2

      Youtube is leaving bloody footprints through conservative Youtubers right now. Google just banned gab.ai from being installed from the Play store. Why haven't you heard about these things? They're huge news right now. Have you been watching fake news?

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    7. Re:They're just giving people a helping hand... by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      Say what you want, but the so-called "conservative" or "right wing" discussion forums tend to be the most open places where real, unfettered discussion can be held.

      [citation needed]

      It's the left-leaning discussion forums, like Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Hacker News and Stack Overflow that, in my opinion, are the least open and least conductive to anything resembling real discussion.

      But you're an anonymous coward. There is no "you", and therefore, no one gives a fuck about "your" opinion.

      Despite being called "conservative", people on the right tend to value free expression for all, even when it involves ideas that they don't agree with.

      That is complete, utter, total, and every other kind of bullshit. The conservative wing is powered by the religious reich, which absolutely opposes free expression.

      Meanwhile, it's the so-called "tolerant" leftists that engage in censorship, whether it's overt censorship through the deletion of content and banning of users/customers, or whether it's causing indirect self-censorship through threats of harm to the reputations or bodies of anyone they disagree with.

      You either haven't read up much on the Nazis, or you think they were grand.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    8. Re:They're just giving people a helping hand... by Mashiki · · Score: 2

      Makes claims, shows no evidence. After boolean, and random searching on google, bing, and DDG I can't find any proof that they've banned anyone. Hell that's counter to their own mission statement -- that uses should be proactive in blocking things they don't like. On top of that that the only thing I can find about anything being banned has to do with Gab.ai being forced by their registar(.ai), into deleting someone's dank post because the registar didn't like it.

      With the registrar violating their own ToS stating that the the parties have to be given 15 days notice(ai gave them 48hrs). And now they're looking at a new registrar and using blockchain.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    9. Re:They're just giving people a helping hand... by Mashiki · · Score: 3, Informative

      [citation needed]

      Why don't you try posting something like "illegal immigrants are a pain in the ass" on /r/politics. I'll wait for your ban, you could post say "not all illegal immigrants are a pain in the ass" on T_D, people would even tell you to defend your pov. Besides, that, you been paying to the absolute bullshit going on in FOSS communities? Where people have started witch hunting code contributors because they have sexual life styles that the new leftist moral majority don't like. Enjoy the shit show

      But you're an anonymous coward. There is no "you", and therefore, no one gives a fuck about "your" opinion.

      But you sure got up in arms over it.

      That is complete, utter, total, and every other kind of bullshit. The conservative wing is powered by the religious reich, which absolutely opposes free expression.

      The religious hold on conservative has been dead around 20-28 years at this point. You might have missed it if you were living in a social bubble, where they kept telling you that though. It was roughly that wingnuts were trying to blow up abortion clinics, and people simply had enough.

      You either haven't read up much on the Nazis, or you think they were grand.

      So let's look at all that fascist stuff the left is going down with: Free speech walls, making claims that "bad speech is hate speech" with the demands that anything contrary to their opinion must be silenced. Doxing, going after employees of companies(there's even a giant tumblr blog you can find that they still refuse to take down). There was the apparent case of witch hunting on a game developer the other day by leftists(they class themselves as SJW's just a FYI) for holding opinions they didn't like.

      Oh and remember the limerick from Pillars of Eternity they didn't like? And got so upset that they started attacking the developers so it got changed...or how about the time when they went after one of the artists for Divinity: Original Sin.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    10. Re:They're just giving people a helping hand... by RedK · · Score: 2

      This is all a matter of public record, you can verify it yourself and don't have to take my word for it.

      So you shouldn't have any issues in providing a source for your claim.

      No, the "Educate yourself" schtick doesn't fly. Never has. You make a claim, you dig up the citation. Otherwise, your statement is baseless and most likely wrong.

      --
      "Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
      Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
    11. Re:They're just giving people a helping hand... by kaatochacha · · Score: 2

      Neither the hard left nor the hard right like people disagreeing with them.
      but I've noticed while the hard right is more likely to call me an asshole for it, the hard left will simply ban you.
      Hell, I have an ex friend who cut me off because I wasn't properly incensed about Charlottesville. My facebook posts weren't angry enough. In her words. She couldn't be friends with someone who wasn't publically angry enough about it. She broke down crying , in fact.

      You're right about the echo chamber.

  2. And nothing of value was lost. by CharlesAKAChuck · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yeah, I'm old.

  3. Re:Twits is the perfect name for them by HornWumpus · · Score: 3, Funny

    Still room for debate: Twitter users: Twits or twats?

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  4. Re:And nothing of value was lost. by Richard_at_work · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Where were their backups? They *did* keep backups, right? Or did they just trust a third party to not have an incident such as this?

  5. Re:And nothing of value was lost. by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 2

    So you have something you put thousands of hours of work into, and you have no form of backup under your control? You're an idiot, lady.

  6. Re:And nothing of value was lost. by taustin · · Score: 2

    Valid case of what? Of someone relying on a free service ("If you're not paying for the service, you're not the customer, you're the product.") to act like a professional service (and you now, keep backups and shit) because they're clueless? Yeah, it's that.