“Rate Limit Exceeded” on Twitter.
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Martin 🧀 (@mart_e@mamot.fr)
Attached: 1 image t.co is adding a five-second delay to some domains https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37130060 "That can't be true !" ``` $ time wget 'https://t.co/4fs609qwWt' ... Executed in 7.57 secs ``` 🙄 #twitter
Tell HN: t.co is adding a five-second delay to some domains | Hacker News
Elon Musk’s X is throttling traffic to websites he dislikes
The site formerly known as Twitter has added a five-second delay when a user clicks on a shortened link to the New York Times, Facebook and other sites Musk commonly attacks, a Washington Post analysis found
By Jeremy B. Merrill and Drew Harwell
Updated August 15, 2023 at 2:22 p.m. EDT|Published August 15, 2023 at 1:27 p.m. EDT
Characters that used to spell Twitter were removed from the company's San Francisco headquarters after Elon Musk renamed the company X. (Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP)
The company formerly known as Twitter has begun slowing the speed with which users can access links to the New York Times, Facebook and other news organizations and online competitors, a move that appears targeted at companies that have drawn the ire of owner Elon Musk.
Users who clicked a link on Musk’s website, now called X, for one of the targeted websites were made to wait about five seconds before seeing the page, according to tests conducted Tuesday by The Washington Post.
The delayed websites included X’s online rivals Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky and Substack, as well as the Reuters wire service and the Times. All of them have previously been singled out by Musk for ridicule or attack.
The delay affects the t.co domain, a link-shortening service that X uses to process every link posted to the website. Traffic is routed through the middleman service, allowing X to track — and in this case throttle — activity to the target website, potentially taking away traffic and ad revenue from businesses Musk personally dislikes.
The Post’s analysis found that links to most other sites were unaffected — including those to The Washington Post, Fox News and social media services such as Mastodon and YouTube — with the shortened links being routed to their final destination in a second or less. A user first flagged the delays early Tuesday on the technology discussion forum Hacker News.
Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” did not respond to requests for comment. X also did not respond. Some of the targeted businesses said they were reviewing the matter when contacted Tuesday by The Post.
Substack’s cofounders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie and Jairaj Sethi said in a statement to The Post that they urged X to reverse the decision instituting a delay on Substack links.
“Substack was created in direct response to this kind of behavior by social media companies,” they said. “Writers cannot build sustainable businesses if their connection to their audience depends on unreliable platforms that have proven they are willing to make changes that are hostile to the people who use them.”
Online companies pour millions of dollars into ensuring their websites open as quickly as possible, knowing that even tiny delays can lead their traffic to plunge as users grow inpatient with the delay and go elsewhere.
Musk has berated the Times as “propaganda” and the “Twitter equivalent of diarrhea.” In April, he removed the “verified” badge from the news outlet’s now 55-million-follower account, making it harder for viewers to distinguish it from fake accounts. He also criticized the paper this month related to its coverage of South African politics.
The delays also affect X’s biggest rivals in social media. Links to Facebook, Instagram and the new microblogging service Threads have all been throttled; all three are owned by Meta, whose founder and chief Mark Zuckerberg has been locked in an ongoing online feud with Musk over not-yet-existent plans for a mixed-martial-arts fight.
X also throttles traffic to Bluesky, the platform started with help from former Twitter chief Jack Dorsey, who has used it to criticize Musk’s leadership. The same throttling also applies to Substack, the email newsletter platform that runs its own short-text service, Substack Notes.
Musk has shown little reluctance to use X’s technical tools to pursue personal grudges. In December, after Musk’s takeover, Twitter banned an account known as ElonJet that tracked the flights of Musk’s private jet, banned journalists who reported on the episode and suspended the official account of a large rival, Mastodon, for referring to the account in a tweet.
The site also began using technical hurdles to make it more difficult for Twitter users to access Mastodon, including marking the website as “unsafe” and blocking users from adding Mastodon links to their profiles. ElonJet now posts on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky.
Japan Earthquake Alert App Says Sayonara to X - Unseen Japan - technology - kbin.social
Many people in Japan depend on the NERV service for earthquake alerts. Unfortunately, they'll no longer be able to receive them on X.
Japan Earthquake Alert App Says Sayonara to X - Unseen Japan
Many people in Japan depend on the NERV service for earthquake alerts. Unfortunately, they'll no longer be able to receive them on X.
unseen-japan.com
Japan Earthquake Alert App Says Sayonara to X
Japan Earthquake Alert App Says Sayonara to X
Picture: Canva
- August 11, 2023
- Tags: natural disasters, nerv, twitter
- Category: Technology
Himari Semans
Many people in Japan depend on the NERV service for earthquake alerts. Unfortunately, they'll no longer be able to receive them on X. Here's why the NERV app is parting ways with the platform.
Japan’s best safety app for natural disasters will withdraw from X (formerly Twitter). 1.9M followers have relied on the app NERV for live information about real-time natural disasters and weather reports. Now, this life-saving information will begin its fadeout from the social media platform.
An important lifeline
The Japanese IT service management company Gehirn Web Services made the announcement on August 7th. The company said it will no longer post information regarding power outages and evacuation measures on its official account on X, citing harsh API constraints.
Gehirn owns and manages the NERV Disaster Prevention App (called Tokumu-Kikan-NERV (特務機関NERV in Japanese). NERV swiftly distributes the company’s analysis of real-time earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons, and weather information.
The app instantly gained recognition from the government’s Japan Meteorological Agency when Gehirn released it in 2019.
The speed of delivery is what distinguishes NERV from other distributors. NERV is “10 seconds or more faster than breaking news on TV,” say experts. NERV retrieves data from real-time earthquakes, analyzes it, and posts information in just 0.3 seconds. The media has praised NERV, saying that “there is no app that delivers such information as quickly and accurately.”
Monday’s post on the official X account for NERV shared Gehirn’s plans to discontinue its use of X. The same post stated that the company will share future NERV content on its app and on Mastodon.
An expensive API
By 9 PM on Monday night, NERV users were demanding answers to the questions raised by Gehirn’s decision. NERV responded to two questions.
Why not use other social media platforms?
“We are moving forward under the premise that our operations should move from platforms managed by other companies to those within our control. Our app of course works on Apple and Google but these are different in terms of API constraints. On the other hand, distribution on ActivityPub is where we can manage our content completely independently. For this reason, in response to requests to move our operations onto different platforms will eventually only result in the same outcome as this time and therefore will not be considered. As NERV posts are still accessible via social media linked with ActivityPub, we plan to continue sharing there.”
What is the situation with X’s API plan?
Currently, we subscribe to the API’s “Basic plan”. With the Basic plan, we are granted 100 posts per 24 hours for the cost of $100 (under current rates this amounts to for the cost of $100 (under current rates this amounts to for the cost of $100 (under current rates this amounts to ¥14,236). The plan above this is the “Pro plan” which costs $5,000 (¥711,715) per month. Our operations run with a budget spent on various studies and development projects.
This month, we find ourselves in the red by n the red by ¥6,000,000 which can hardly qualify as a good financial situation as we continue with our operations. If we upgrade to the Pro plan, we will incur a cost of over ¥8,540,000 per year. We have decided that if we were to spend over ¥700,000 per month that it would be better if this money could go to developing our NERV app and strengthening our ActivityPub servers instead of X’s API. Therefore, we are beginning to cut down on our posts on X.
Repercussions for other Japanese services
NERV’s issues with X’s API constraints began earlier this month on August 1st when it announced that it was “unable to automatically publish posts due to API constraints.”
Gehirn is not alone in its recent concerns over X’s API constraints. The Japanese website Togetter which specializes in processing viral Tweets experienced glitches with X’s API too when X demoted its plan to the “Free plan.”
As for now, the NERV account on X is still posting real-time updates every few hours on weather patterns as well as passing typhoons in Japan.
NERV’s origins
The name NERV comes from the Japanese anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, of which the app’s founder is a huge fan.
Ishimori Daiki created the first account for NERV in 2010 while he was still a student at Tsukuba University in Japan. NERV was a hobby to him. A hobby that had just 300 followers.
But then, the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami happened in 2011. The home Ishimori had grown up in was destroyed. He lost his aunt. Ever since, Ishimori has poured all of his energy into improving the distribution of information for natural disasters.
When Ishimori’s company Gehirn released the NERV app in 2019, there were 10,000 downloads. Now, there are 206,000. Hopefully, its app continues to enjoy success – and serve its important purpose for users in Japan.
Elon Musk has finally locked down Tweetdeck (XPro) for paid subscribers only
Elon Musk has finally made TweetDeck (or XPro) for paid users only. It has been reported that free users are unable to access TweetDeck without an Blue subscription. This comes after X rebranding.
www.neowin.net
Elon Musk has finally locked down Tweetdeck (XPro) for paid subscribers only
Omer Dursun · Aug 16, 2023 04:16 EDT3
Elon Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter, has made its TweetDeck exclusive to paying subscribers. TweetDeck, which X acquired in 2011 for $40 million, is a popular tool that allows users to track multiple Twitter lists and trends.
In early July, Twitter Support announced that you'd need to pay to use TweetDeck in 30 days. It said users will need a Verified account. Furthermore, today, many users reported being unable to access TweetDeck without an X Blue verification subscription.
The change means news organizations, journalists, researchers, and social media consultants who relied on TweetDeck to monitor X will now have to pay to continue using it.
Under Musk, X has been pushing its Blue subscription by packing features beyond just the verification checkmark. Blue subscribers can now post longer text and videos, see 50% fewer ads, get priority ranking for their replies, mentions, and searches, access article bypass paywalls, receive a "prioritized content" tag, and have the ability to share ad revenue with X.
However, the exclusivity of TweetDeck for paying users is likely to upset many users who aren't interested in the other perks of Blue. TweetDeck felt neglected for the past few years, and its Windows app was even shut down in 2016. Tests of a new TweetDeck version began in 2021 but have yet to launch fully.
Anyone using TweetDeck will now be migrated to the newer TweetDeck preview. According to an X employee, the company is now "working on migrating everyone to the preview version". Anyone can chime in with feedback on a new Twitter community for TweetDeck.
On the other hand, the TweetDeck app is undergoing a name change as Elon Musk pushes Twitter's rebranding to X. With Musk's decision, it will now be called XPro.
The move to make TweetDeck paid-only mirrors other recent changes at X intended to boost subscriber numbers and revenue. However, it remains to be seen whether limiting access to the tweet tracking tool will drive more users to pay up or frustrate them.
Keith Edwards (@keithedwards) on Threads
X has officially removed headlines from website links. It now just displays an image and the website. What will it take for the media to abandon it?
www.threads.net
Anthony Dean (@dtgeek@mastodon.social)
That makes Twitter way less useful (if possible). Unless one types in text with the headline, or articles switch to header images with the headline just to accommodate this...
