I run an ecom store that gets a lot of its customers from Twitter. I was also shocked to see my traffic double or triple overnight and thought the algorithm had blessed me and my business. Soon realized what was actually happening. Thought other traffic-monitors might appreciate this explanation.
Meanwhile Nikita Bier is pretending they never suppressed tweets with links to begin with, offering the alternative explanation: "a common complaint is that posts with links tend to get lower reach. This is because the web browser covers the post and people forget to Like or Reply. So X doesn't get a clear signal whether the content is any good"[1]. A bit of a rewriting of history since Elon and his mom both tweeted about how it wasn't fair to use his platform to promote other links/platforms, even banning people who shared profiles of other social networks (including Paul Graham for a period). They suppressed all links shortly after.
[0] https://x.com/cjgbest/status/1985464687350485092
[1] https://x.com/nikitabier/status/1979994223224209709
I deactivated last week. The platform is bad and getting worse. It's scammy and spammy. Everything is designed around garbage engagement, so that the X team can brag about how good the product is doing.
oh brother
I didn't think IG does something similarly shady
> Something went wrong, but don't fret - let's give it another shot.
This is all I've seen for literally years now. No real error, does not even say to login or install an app, just blames it on my privacy extensions (I don't actually have any) and offers a button to pointlessly try again. No big loss, but surprising! On the one hand, it's the only time big tech isn't engaged in obnoxious harassment, but it's also a conspicuously dumb oversight in the funnel
I would much prefer if Google just stopped showing inaccessible information completely.
Is that the same as the fail whale era?
Before, there was no problem using Instagram or Twitter while not logged in. Now there is a dark pattern that forces you to create an account, or log in.
Why you’re describing isn’t a recent phenomenon. Not even remotely.
Facebook has never allowed people read only views to their platform. And Expert Stack Overflow like Quora used the same dark patterns you described too.
I think this is a huge reason for the initial popularity, because it was trivial to build really fun experiences on top of that, until they cut it off for whatever reason (guessing money, one way or another).
At the same time, you could also view tweets without being logged in, and you saw replies too.
The complete firehose was expensive and paid-only.
You could get a sampling of Tweets at a lower rate through the API. It wasn’t the complete firehose, though.
And if you click on an account you just get top posts of all time instead of a chronological feed, so it's impossible to even find the context while being logged off.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28268365
Edit: Some more posts -
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28289263
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28281472
> Come on, pre-Elon you could click on a Twitter link and read the entire thread as well as the replies, now you just get a single tweet with no context above/below.
I don't want to nitpick stupid shit like this mate. But my point was to emphasise that Twitter had been going downhill before the takeover.
(And fact that it was always a toxic cesspool regardless of who owned it, but that's a different matter altogether)
There were similar trends at other social media sites that happened around the same time.
I wish all the devs that I respect were using another platform.
Whenever something big happens I keep getting x.com links from friends. Is it just my friends?
There are a few old FinTwit people who have migrated over. Mark Dow, IvanTheK. It works for me.
And Mastodon works too, once I had customised my feed. There are a lot of makers on it, and Cory Doctorow. I did have to filter out the "activists", but twitter has the same activist problem.
Believe me, you can live without Twitter.
A lot of writers and creatives who could not stomach X.com anymore (and were then likely burned by Mastodon's geekiness).
> Is it just my friends?
If your friends are in the right-wing sphere (e.g. Joe Rogan listeners, etc), then yeah, likely.
It was incredibly toxic, but of course the "left-wing sphere" thinks they are the purveyors of universal "good", thus their toxicity is fine.
You can detach your posts if you get quote-reposted, you can limit who can reply to posts (to followers, people who follow you, people you've mentioned, or only to yourself), blocking someone also means that 3rd parties can't even view the threads (and so can't jump into drama that one side has attempted to disengage from), you can hide replies to your posts, blocklists let you immediately prevent large lists of users from seeing or interacting with you, and there's a culture among many users to immediately block people who are thought to be potential agitators (a very proactive culture of "don't feed the trolls").
If your experience was toxic, you probably just didn't use the tools available to you to avoid that toxicity.
site features can only go so far when there is a broader cultural ethos
Everyone I know. I routinely see only bluesky links. Yes, if X/Grok is promoting Nazi content, then yeah, I'll hear about it. But beyond that, nothing important that happens isn't showing up on Bluesky.
> Whenever something big happens I keep getting x.com links from friends. Is it just my friends?
I think it's safe to say that if people are sending links to a certain site, they are using that site. But assuming that everyone is using that same site is silly. It doesn't take any amount of effort to realize that other people are using other sites.
Bluesky does actually have an algorithmic feed ("Discover"), but it isn't the default.
BlueSky's definitely gotten a lot of the technical side of things right (as compared to the fediverse, the complexity of which blocks mainstream adoption). Unfortunately, it's also now an incredibly unpleasant place to be unless you want to swim in constant political ragebait. Twitter also has a mountain of awful shit, but for whatever reason I've been able to curate my feed enough that I don't usually see it.
They're both mostly unpleasant, and we'd all probably be better off not using either, but I still find myself going back to Twitter because there's nothing better. Same way I feel about Reddit, honestly.
I check the mainstream headlines once a day, kind of like checking the weather. There may be something I need to know. But then I move on.
Getting worked up about politics is like shaking your fist at the rain clouds, completely pointless.
I don't have any problem with people having and voicing thoughts on politics. Everyone should strive to be well-informed and be capable of having reasonable conversations about politics, especially with people with whom they disagree. (Obviously, that's a charitable description of what's happening on social media, but that's a different topic.)
I guess ultimately the problem is that I want to follow topics, not people, and there isn't a great way to do that. Reddit provides an alternative but is comparatively low-volume, and voting represents a fundamental design problem because it by definition creates an echo chamber. And that's not even taking into account how over-moderated the site is at this point.
Really depends on who you're following
But you can also follow people and read only what they write, reply to them, and write yourself.
Oh, and the owner's account.
"It's gone to hell"
"No, it just reflects your tastes"
"That's objectively false: create a new account and see what happens."
"..."
If I visit a buffet looking for a healthy snack, but 90% of the dishes are fast food, then I'll probably spend a lot of time looking through the fast food, and may even eat some as the best worst option.
Similarly, I have found the overall content pool to have significantly worsened since Musk's takeover. The algorithm keeps serving me trash. It doesn't mean I want trash.
People, including myself, were booted out for giving opinions that did not align with their corrupt values. Even post-Elon, after appealing decision, some of us still haven't been let back in.
My interest is this: It appears that it's not possible to over-ride the training effectively since NSFW material bleeds into normal image requests. Musk had this problem before trying to over-ride Grok's training, so at one point said he would have to retrain Grok. It's interesting to me that LLMs can't be steered effectively, which makes me wonder if they can ever really be aligned ("safe")
Hard to avoid that problem.
(sorry i don't remember the name but there was an example with a model liking howl to showcase this)
Is it only in the app, or also with the browser?
Crazy.
/s
Everything is posted to get views, even from the more quality people. It’s ironic that I hear about “brainrot” the most on X, but it’s full of brainrot masquerading as valuable information.
It's embarrassing, but that's what the entire site is.
(It is absolutely true that a lot of creators hate AI, although I would argue that they have fair reasons to do so given the way AI is frequently presented / talked about / used. I find it unfortunate that everything remotely related to machine learning has now been rebranded as "AI", which leads people to reflexively dunk on tools that really aren't that much like the AI they have in their heads, but it's not their fault.)
Like what precisely? Infosec twitter is gone, science twitter is long dead. Visiting my timeline in non-algorithmic mode yields a post from months ago. In algo mode it's just ads and rage-bait.
The disruption is egregious. It is notable and worth pushing back against, even if you don't view it as "exceptional".
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45632336
But hey, maybe those gay Nicaraguan's really needed that $3 million. Perhaps another $70 trillion to Israel, just to round it off.
Further, unless you are in the top .1% of earners, or you live on tips (I somehow doubt there are many stippers on HN) your taxes will not decrease as a result of any of Trumps "cuts".
In short, you have been lied to and are celebrating unnecessary cruelty for the sake of cruelty which will save you personally $0.00 and which only further increases America's debts.
Worse the ridiculous tariffs are pushing us toward a recession that only AI investment has forestalled. AI investment now represents the single largest investment of capital in human history, and if that bubble bursts we will enter into what could potentially be the worst economic collapse in not only American history, but human history.
I understand having a favourable view of Musk in the past. But to continue to do so today is to put your hands over your ears and say “la la la la” while confronted with overwhelming evidence.
The effects of shutting down USAID are extremely clear. Kids are starving and dying:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12150160/
Even if you truly genuinely believe USAID must be shut down then you phase it out over, at minimum, months. Doing so overnight means you have made an active choice to kill people. If your response to that is to completely ignore the suffering and pull out some absurd right wing talking point then I truly worry for you.
Emotional blackmail paired with dismissive ad hominem had a good run, admittedly.
I have bad news either way.
[1]: https://www.aha.org/news/headline/2025-10-03-senate-again-fa...
How are budget negotiations supposed to work if one of the sides won't even promise to honor the agreements made?
How is Musk involved in the current budget debacle aside from being "republican"? It's easy to blame stuff on him when he was running DOGE, but since his falling out with trump blaming every cut on Musk is a tired and expired meme.
Plus he's on Twitter every week publicly discussing how much he uses the platform to put his thumb on the scale of discourse towards his personal beliefs.
In what world is he not involved?
Americans will be living with Musk's legacy for decades.
Tesla for years made billions by enabling others to pollute, and it still does so.
Every EV Musk sells enables more ICE cars to stay on the road.
If you want to drink the kool-aid thats fine, but the facts are not on your side.
In some cases, like Tesla, the vaporware is propping up the company (pivoting to robots!) even though sales are crashing because of the self-inflicted immolation of his personal brand. This is not going to end well.
Absolutely laughable motivated reasoning. Hate the guy if you must, but claiming one of the most impactful business leaders in American history is "99% vaporware" makes you look silly.
There are studies showing how objectively bad Facebook and Instagram are for people, leading them to depression and so on. Isn't this hitting the fabric of our society? Our youth has severe issues also because of Zuckeberg, probably even more than due to Musk.
Or is the fabric of our society only what's convenient to pick, such as whatever you guys dislike about Elon?
Social media the way these companies run it is s** from all point of views.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
BTW: it's normal to diverge or even say "also xyz does that s*". The issue is bigger than X, and more related to social media itself. As long as there is some respect or some argument...
At least the guy says what he thinks, which you might agree or disagree with. And yes, in the meantime he is getting richer.
Not sure what's bad about that.
Parent commenter pointed out Musk performing a nazi salute during the inauguration of the President of the United States, and supporting fascist party takeovers across the world. If you are not sure what is bad about that, then maybe you should just admit to having nazi inclinations?
Why? It's a cesspool of hate. Even if you try to avoid the political nonsense Elon forces himself and his cronies into your recommendations.
---
It's astonishing how quickly discussion disintegrates when Musk is mentioned on HN. He really is such a divisive figure, with incredibly polarised language both in support and against him.
Normal reasoned arguments are just absent here. Sometimes when two people disagree, they can still have a nuanced conversation/argument about it. But not about Musk.
There are some opinions in this thread that I vehemently disagree with, but it's not worth escalating by adding my opinion to the pile.
It reminds me of that phenomenon where you read the newspaper and notice an article in your domain of expertise and it's riddled with errors! Then you turn the page, read an article about something else, and completely trust it. You somehow didn't transfer the knowledge that the newspaper is inaccurate to the new domain.
It makes me wonder what other discussions on HN (and elsewhere) are completely devoid of nuance and reason, but I just don't notice it.
Incompetence is obviously still a possibility, but the likely intent overcoming such issues is to make X seem to generate more traffic and thus appear to be more relevant.
See this article from 2016: https://developers.googleblog.com/en/modernizing-oauth-inter...
So my worries are that someone is going to click a link in Twitter and then enter their username and password into a news website. When this happens you need to trust the app developers.
Yes and many people think that is outweighed by all the other issues raised in the larger thread here. That's "nuance and reason". Pretending it isn't there is not "nuance and reason".
No 'reasoned arguments' were provided in your take. I'll give you one against this though -- it's all fun and games until you end up on a list because of Musk's UX.
Try this: steelman the argument that what Musk did all those months ago wasn't a "literal Hitler salute". If you can do that, I suspect you'll find it a lot easier to have nuanced discussions about that topic (and possibly others) going forward.
As a plain webview would mean that you can grab everyone's details.
Elon absolutely on his track to copy this important feature [1]
The webview works as a traffic faucet. Elon can turn it on or off for every third-party site, you know, for "Internet safety".
My take:
Next step is X.com proprietary APIs inside the Webview, like payment and everything.
The ultimate goal is a "mini-app" framework that use PWA-like techs to run everything based on the Webview and circumvent Appstore.
And last a phone that runs the "mini-app" framework because why not, as an "AI edge node" like Elon recently proposed.
[1]: https://x.com/danmurrays/status/1683446630245187584
That's an interesting word to describe a platform that was previously the undisputed playground of Feds and NGOs.
Censorship and propaganda at breathtaking scale.
This is a good place to start: https://twitterfiles.substack.com/
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/06/tech/twitter-files-lawyers/in...
> “Nothing in the new materials shows any governmental actor compelling or even discussing any content-moderation action with respect to Trump” and others participating in the suit, Twitter argued.
> The communications unearthed as part of the Twitter Files do not show coercion, Twitter’s lawyers wrote, “because they do not contain a specific government demand to remove content—let alone one backed by the threat of government sanction.”
> “Instead,” the filing continued, the communications “show that the [FBI] issued general updates about their efforts to combat foreign interference in the 2020 election.” The evidence outlined by Twitter’s lawyers is consistent with public statements by former Twitter employees and the FBI, along with prior CNN analysis of the Twitter Files.
> Altogether, the filing by Musk’s own corporate lawyers represents a step-by-step refutation of some of the most explosive claims to come out of the Twitter Files and that in some cases have been promoted by Musk himself.
Don't worry, though. Under Musk's leadership, free speech is well protected. Just ask https://x.com/elonjet, which Musk specifically promised (https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1589414958508691456) to protect! They would never ban a news story just because it was from a hack! (https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/26/24255298/elon-musk-x-bloc...)
Does exactly that using Musk's own lawyers
"...Wait no you weren't suppose to actually do that..."
[0] https://twitterfiles.substack.com/p/1-thread-the-twitter-fil...
> > The communications unearthed as part of the Twitter Files do not show coercion, Twitter’s lawyers wrote, “because they do not contain a specific government demand to remove content—let alone one backed by the threat of government sanction.”
That was the case for the Biden laptop story, too. (And SCOTUS, thus far, seems to agree; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murthy_v._Missouri)
Again: Musk's own lawyers argued in court that the Twitter Files don't actually show what Matt Taibbi claimed they do.
(Taibbi also publicly claims Musk is now censoring him. https://x.com/mtaibbi/status/1758230628355485979)
> though sometimes it went the other way, it was much less frequent
While I tend to doubt that assertion, "Left-wing terrorism outpaces far-right attacks for first time in 30 years" perhaps points to a reason for a difference if it exists. https://www.axios.com/2025/09/28/left-wing-terrorism-far-rig...
The current administration seems just fine with similar jawboning. https://www.theverge.com/policy/799473/facebook-meta-ice-jaw...
In and Out has 5 menu items, similar to an app made in the USA, not too many features
A Chinese market can list 50 items similar to WeChat that has 50 different features.
The culture is reflected in the app design.
source: https://digitalcreative.cn/blog/how-china-ux-is-different
The UI looks different (information density etc.) but in the end it's still a collection of external applications neatly wrapped inside a platform with strong walls and a strict gatekeeper, with a basic suite available by default. In China, you could ditch most of iOS if you could trick a phone into launching directly into WeChat.
I think I selected science and music as starting interests. Within 10 minutes I was getting lots of right wing borderline Nazi bullshit.
Tries it all again in incognito mode. Roughly same thing. WTF
As a user I like to get out as soon as I click because I can trace back the link and I can do clipping or bookmark in my browser.
https://x.com/AOC
*Pretend gasp* How could they?
To use a dead platform or an actual active one?
I don’t even follow politics on Twitter just video games and some fandoms but it’s actual alive compared to Bluesky where nothing happens basically. Especially true if you follow non-english content.
"To each according to his needs" works out really great when you are the one deciding who needs what.
I wasn't.