Do you think Lemmy.ml should ban X/Twitter links?
Do you think Lemmy.ml should ban X/Twitter links?
A lot of subreddits are banning/proposing to ban X links in response to Führer Elon's wonderful gesture of love and tolerance. Should this instance follow suit?
Also, Instagram/Threads/Meta links. Same question.
No. Banning any kind of link is bad. People should decide themself if they want to follow a link. Extensions like the firefox extension redirector even allow to redirect to archive websites directly, to preserve sources of knowledge while avoiding the mainstream platform of the link.
Yes please! I'd rather that platform be banned widely
Yes.
Yes. Just do it. We’re in consensus.
Yes please! We're here to get away from centralised content.
I never click them anyway. If the meme isn't wild enough to get pixelated into a shitpost gif then I don't need to see it. Not once in my lifetime have I ever clicked a Twitter/Facebook/Instagram link and thought that the click was worth it.
I'd support it. If something is worthy of drawing attention to, it's worth taking a screenshot and sharing that - preferably with a backup to Wayback Machine.
There's no need to drive traffic to or engagement with X imo, even if it's relatively minimal.
Same for Meta products really, though idk if Instagram has some defense against screenshots (I know there's other photo-focused services that do, I'm just not on Instagram very often/recently at all so idk).
Edit: You know, given the existence of xcancel and similar services, I want to walk this back a little. People are in here making good points - screenshots can be doctored, and having access to a trusted mirrored/archived source is better for verification purposes while still accomplishing what I'd like to see. If it's technically possible to do, some automatic means of doing that would be cool, but even that's a bit iffy. Maybe something like that Pipedbot thing could work, even if people kinda hate those bots. Best choice is just posting mirrored/archive links from the get go.
Yes
TL;DR: Censorship and content manipulation are real problems, as shown with Instagram’s hashtag blocking and how platforms like Twitter (now X) are used to amplify harmful ideologies. It’s a growing concern how these platforms are becoming vehicles for dangerous misinformation, hate speech, and even political manipulation—all while being run by billionaires with their own agendas.
Yes, and I'll explain why (content warning: US politics but the truth about the billionaire-controlled racist media is political)
With the three richest men on EARTH, "Zuckerberg, Bezos and Musk seated in front of cabinet picks" (Guardian) at the inauguration, it's clear who's really in control. We must stay vigilant and communicate on decentralized, open-source, or encrypted channels. Use lemmy, mastodon, and bluesky for public communication and Signal for private communication. Edit Wikipedia. Donate if you can. Be aware who controls what media, and don't encourage them or feed into it: Twitter (Musk), Facebook (Zuck), Instagram (Zuck), the Washington Post (Bezos).
https://www.axios.com/2025/01/21/instagram-democrat-hashtags-blocked-search
Several Instagram users have reported seeing hashtags such as "#democrat," "republicans," "#jan6th" and "#johnoliver" being blocked, accompanied by a message stating, "We've hidden these results." For example, if a user searches "jan6th," a popup states that the results had been hidden as they "may contain sensitive content." A "learn more" link takes a user to Instagram's generic sensitive content help page. Between the lines: Trump, who had once threatened Zuckerberg with life in prison, took credit earlier this month for the changes in Facebook's content moderation rules. "Probably," Trump said when asked if Zuckerberg is "directly responding to the threats you've made to him in the past."
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/04/media/washington-post-cartoonist-ann-telnaes-resigns-bezos/index.html
Talnaes, who had been with The Post since 2008, wrote in a Substack post announcing her resignation that, “I have had editorial feedback and productive conversations—and some differences—about cartoons I have submitted for publication, but in all that time I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. Until now.” The cartoon depicted Bezos, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI chief Sam Altman on their knees, handing over bags of cash to a statue of Trump next to a lipstick-holding Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong and bowing Mickey Mouse.
You know as well as I do what this means and why we use lemmy --- "Lemmy is free, open-source software, meaning no advertising, monetizing, or venture capital, ever. "
Given that "Elon Musk agrees with antisemitic X post that claims Jews ‘push hatred’ against White people" (CNN) and trying to censor Wikipedia over his Nazi Salute (SCMP), it's clear that the White South African is turning his personal Xwitter shitter into a tool for the billionaire class --- and for unbridled racism. Under Musk, the word "cisgender" is treated as a slur, but not actual racial slurs (AP)
I'm sad to say this is no longer a "conspiracy theory" but verifiable facts about how our world works in 2025.
Yes. Not only from Twitter, though. Spotify gave money to Trump's inauguration. So did Google, and Amazon.
PLEASE
Yes, Musk's Nazi propaganda machine must reach as few people as possible. The guy is dangerous to the world. Twitter is a propaganda and misinformation tool now, it is no longer a place for social interactions.
Yes. I think it's ok if people use screenshots of old Twitter memes because most of them have floated around forever, but block all links.
Yes. Mostly because it's difficult to view the full content without logging in, and I refuse to do that on principle. Screenshots and mirrors are fine, I just don't think we should be generating traffic to that site.
Absolutely
Automatically replace them with xcancel links or something.
Yes.
Add youtube and, facebook to that list
Sure. Don't need it.
Only have installed for news from some creators I follow and don't have any other presence.Yes, PLEASE! Even without the whole Sieg Heil debacle Twitter is ass to use if you're not a registered user. Same with Meta & co.
Stop asking and just ban it already
As a source for OC art and pics? No
As a URL in post? Yes
Yes.
Evidence suggests that X is a hate site run by a fascist.
Meta isn't quite there yet, but heading in the same direction.
Regardless if he is a saint or not, it's super centralized social media and we shouldn't support it
Centralisation isn't inherently bad. It has many benefits from a technical perspective. Remember that none of these social networks got popular through not offering people what they wanted, and the vast majority of people do not want biased or hate filled sites.
But centralisation does give a lot of power and influence to the few, and so far, they have all been found wanting when it comes to not being evil.
There are still some anti empire posts on X.
Does Musk want us to brigade his threads? I guess if it sells more Tide then probably, but I've never seen an ad on X.
Yes... we should probably ban Xitter links... but maybe allow other front ends? You know, because screenshots can be forged.
yes
Would it be possible to automatically change Twitter links posted and substitute them with a mirror site?
Block them. If they have something interesting or important to say, just quote it. Don't send them even more traffic and attention.
A quote is not a source. The news often misquotes people or takes words out of context.
A tweet should be screenshotted with the original link along with an alternate to xcancel.com.
If the tweet itself has a link or mentions something elsewhere, a link to that source should also be provided.
Sounds like a lot but anything less is misinformation, as far as I'm concerned. So much news and memes have been spread where the subject is taken out of context. Hours or days or years will go by before people come to discover the true meaning of something and by then the impression has already been made.
Are we trusting a site being run by a known white nationalist/Nazi as a news source?
Agreed. At least send the link shared to Twitter then, if there's any. A screenshot is better than nothing.
I think both Twitter and Musk are incredibly toxic for society, but we don't want to set that precedent. People can make their own choice whether to visit the site. At most, links to Twitter should be flagged as such.
Yes
Wasn't Lemmy supposed to be for free speech/anti-censorship and shit? Or maybe I got it wrong? Yall do realize there are many reasonable things on X and not just the right-wing/Elon stuff. Right?
Lemmy is software that can be used however the instance admin that hosts the community that you are using want it to be used. It is censorship proof which means that you are free to launch your own instance and publish your own content which will be sent to and be accessible from other Lemmy software instances that federate with you and allow the content or people can sign in themselves to your local instance if you allow them to make accounts and access your software and hosting.
That makes sense. I guess the instances I'm using are pro-censorship and not Lemmy itself.
Yes, we do realize that. But we can no longer fight them on a platform literally controlled algorithmically from the top-down by the worlds richest man who is backed by the commander-in-chief of the world's best-funded military. Maybe deleting our accounts is a better strategy then ratioing losers on a platform subject to increasingly open and brazen manipulation.
You have to be willing to walk away from and ignore corporate media platforms, or else they'll never be defeated. And content creators need to also learn to not post their stuff to these platforms.
yes
I'd prefer to see people screenshot/crop and also link to an archived version or a frontend. These services (X, Instagram, Meta, etc.) often require you to login for a lot of things (including seeing posts) and also block VPNs.
It definitely is harmful to Lemmy's userbase to click on these links, but I also don't think we should create a walled garden. Users can always choose to use solutions like LibRedirect.
No. Please don’t post screenshots. Twitter is almost never the original source and if it is, it’s only one side of the story. Please consider finding an alternative source and banning Twatter entirely.
Yes
@[email protected] please consider this.
I responded yes in the other thread.
I'm glad to hear
Yes.
No
Yes.
Yes
There's always xcancel. Does that not solve most people's concern?
It’s compatible with banning original links, and can break later
Do you think Lemmy should act like Meta, which banned Pixelfed links and Mastodon instances?
Logic like this is like refusing to use violence against colonizers because your colonizer uses violence.
Tactics cannot be evaluated solely on the basis of whether your opponent uses them. Banning certain sources robs them of a little bit more reach and that's a good thing if you're talking about an explicitly fascist platform. I think either screenshots or archive links should be the only time x posts are allowed.
Dooooo itttt!
FFS i come here to lemmy to escape this censorship delirium. If you are just going to be "reddit at home" might as well have actual reddit
what the actual fuck
I think it's important to preserve the original source for verifiability.
Perhaps require the main link to be to a mirror or screenshot, but allow the original link in the body of the post.
Perhaps some automated conversion with a warning when posting that it does this?
Fuck no, great way to alienate yourselves, stifle platform growth and decrease content/engagement
I don't think you should do this, so what makes you better than them? 🤷♂️
They do hate speech and we don’t want to contribute to their traffic?
Yes. Ban it. No more traffic to big social media. If something is newsworthy there will be a blog post about it.
Difficult question to answer.
- things happen on Twitter / Threads / Gab/ etc that are important/worth hearing about , or at least interesting, but
- I do not wish to send any traffic to these sites
- and definitely do not wish them making any money from my traffic
In the end I think we should not forbid or block, but be much more careful what we share from those sites. I also think it’s important - very important - to make any competing social media much more interesting to people wanting to be involved and kept up to date. How, I don’t know either but we shouldn’t be too strict on eg Bluesky, rather cooperate or something.
Nuke it from orbit.
and the only regret, there isn't a gravestone to visit to piss on.
huuuu yeah
bring on the fireworks and lets get the show on
Anything from US media should be banned as well. The US created nato using a lot of high-level nazi party members. It supports nazi collaborator Banderaists in Ukraine.
Not all US media is the same. You have to look at the structure of ownership, political pressure, advertising, and income. Treating reporters differently based on their nationality is not a good precedent to set. We need a variety of perspectives from every country, including independent media such as NPR and Wikipedia, both of which are founded in the US but provide information not on just the US but also stories around the world. No superpower, whether China, Russia, or the US should get to control the narrative. The real goal is to unite the working class against all authoritarian-capitalist-oligarchical regimes. Don't feed into Russia's anti-NATO justification for the Ukraine war. Not because I'm pro-NATO. Not because I don't believe the US has a Nazi problem (I do). I just recognize crypto-Putin apologia when I see it. I hope working people in Ukraine and Russia will both be free someday from the influence of superpowers, dictators, and billionaires.
no. but I hope the software increasingly gives power doward. block at every level for the individual. block keywords. follow other uses blocklists. etc. and communities should decide at that level but ideally at the highest level you want no interferance.
It would be nice to have more curation control as a user.
does not make any sense to ban if you dont want x link just dont open it but letting data to not flow on instance and instead using screenshot will just decrease the storage
Yes and ban Meta too.
So easy to just screenshot or something there is no reason to link there.
Sources are important, along with screenshots. Images can be manufactured or manipulated. Posts can be edited.
It's crazy that you're getting downvoted. It seems, people WANT to be fed fake news as long as it aligns with their beliefs.
I'd be more than happy to see all links pointing to xitter banned. FB/Meta would be nice too, but I think it's more important to sending a clear signal on neo-nazi salutes being a red line.
Slippery slope of censorship. Where would it stop?