A few days ago I had to prove I was human with the weirdest captcha I've ever seen. Then this showed up in my notifications:
>Why does my account have a label?
>Transparency on X is very important. This is why we are letting you know that we have found your account may contain spam or be engaging in other types of inauthentic behaviors. You may not engage in behaviors that manipulate X or artificially impact how content is discovered and amplified.
>What does this mean for my account?
>The reach of your account may be limited and its content may also be temporarily restricted, such as being excluded from trends, replies, and recommended notifications. You can learn more about this temporary impact to your account here. Our automated systems sometimes make mistakes and we are working to improve them.
No idea what the label is, what I did to incur it, or when if ever it will be lifted. The link to learn more is just generic boilerplate. Great system.
TheCraiggers · 4h ago
If you read the various TOS legalese you'll find they are well within their rights to do whatever they want to your account. They don't need a reason.
Would i say it's "right"? No. But it's literally what you're signing up for by using a closed service like Twitter. Free, open alternatives exist. Use them.
barbazoo · 4h ago
I was walking through this and thought, great, what if we used Mastodon and got kicked out. Do I just pick another provider from the fediverse implementing the ActivityPub protocol?
> ActivityPub has been criticized for not natively supporting moving accounts from one server to another, forcing implementations to build their own solutions. While there has been work on building a standardized system for migrating accounts using the Move activity via the Fediverse Enhancement Proposal organization, the current proposal only allows for basic follower migration, with all other data remaining linked to the original account.
How much of a problem is that in practice?
mbirth · 3h ago
You have to setup the move on your original account. It basically just says to all followers: “@barbazoo@hn.com has moved to @barbazoo@reddit.com” and - if implemented in their server - they will follow your new account instead.
But if you get kicked out of HN, how are you supposed to setup the forwarding? Also, all your previous posts won’t be visible to anyone anymore, as your account will be blocked.
You’ll basically start out with a blank account, and only get to keep your followers if you’re still able to setup the forwarding on the old account.
krunck · 4h ago
I'm pretty sick of VPN users being punished. If I was going to hack your site I wouldn't use a VPN. I'd change the MAC address on my device and use some free cafe wifi.
strictnein · 4h ago
Your MAC address is stripped at the first hop, so changing it does nothing. "Public" IPs, like those from a Starbucks, are also viewed poorly by anti-fraud systems.
VPN users get "punished" because of abuse from other VPN users. It's that simple.
mingus88 · 2h ago
Many modern OSes already randomize your MAC on untrusted WiFi
But that has no substantive effect on if a site wants to block you. They’ll do that based on other indicators like geo-IP so committing a crime with an IP where you live is not a great idea.
Which is exactly why sites treat VPN blocks as low trust/reputation
antonkar · 4h ago
The topic-starter added a comment there:
"So, yep, I really wasn't even using my VPN that much recently - it's the same one I used for months.
And even bigger problem, of course, is - why just looking at my problem where a user with almost 1000 followers and a community that actively chats and spends a lot of time on X (usually, it's good for ad supported platforms).
So why even quite active paid users can't be checked in at least a day (I think it should be minutes but alas), why 5-7 days! ;-)"
giancarlostoro · 4h ago
The anti-bot stuff on X is overtly aggressive.
rozap · 4h ago
Which is funny, given such a large portion of these sites (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit) are all bots and spam.
They somehow have anti bot infra that is both incredibly annoying to real users and somewhat ineffective. And I'd even believe that they may have pretty good accuracy, but the sheer scale of the spam still impacts real users.
pkkkzip · 4h ago
Not sure what the issue here is, if you change your location a lot using VPN, it will trigger their bot detection and lock you out, its a feature.
You can always ask for a refund in situations like this and resubscribe to x premium.
A real problem with these platforms not just x is mass reporting, fake DMCAs all pose vulnerabilities which are hard to address.
Even on HN, if you have non-conforming opinions of those with higher points, you will be censored, flagged etc.
mousethatroared · 3h ago
"Even on HN, if you have non-conforming opinions of those with higher points, you will be censored, flagged etc."
Its not what it used to be, but HN is still better than most other places. I really think an LLM trained on its submissions/comment would be interesting
2OEH8eoCRo0 · 4h ago
I just got suspended for an innocuous reply to a journalist that I follow. It's the only time I've ever posted on Twitter. Something is wrong over there.
mingus88 · 2h ago
It’s working as designed for the current owner
Childish billionaires develop grudges against meany journalists who report on them. Welcome to the backlash.
>Why does my account have a label? >Transparency on X is very important. This is why we are letting you know that we have found your account may contain spam or be engaging in other types of inauthentic behaviors. You may not engage in behaviors that manipulate X or artificially impact how content is discovered and amplified.
>What does this mean for my account? >The reach of your account may be limited and its content may also be temporarily restricted, such as being excluded from trends, replies, and recommended notifications. You can learn more about this temporary impact to your account here. Our automated systems sometimes make mistakes and we are working to improve them.
No idea what the label is, what I did to incur it, or when if ever it will be lifted. The link to learn more is just generic boilerplate. Great system.
Would i say it's "right"? No. But it's literally what you're signing up for by using a closed service like Twitter. Free, open alternatives exist. Use them.
Then I read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub#Account_migration
> ActivityPub has been criticized for not natively supporting moving accounts from one server to another, forcing implementations to build their own solutions. While there has been work on building a standardized system for migrating accounts using the Move activity via the Fediverse Enhancement Proposal organization, the current proposal only allows for basic follower migration, with all other data remaining linked to the original account.
How much of a problem is that in practice?
But if you get kicked out of HN, how are you supposed to setup the forwarding? Also, all your previous posts won’t be visible to anyone anymore, as your account will be blocked.
You’ll basically start out with a blank account, and only get to keep your followers if you’re still able to setup the forwarding on the old account.
VPN users get "punished" because of abuse from other VPN users. It's that simple.
But that has no substantive effect on if a site wants to block you. They’ll do that based on other indicators like geo-IP so committing a crime with an IP where you live is not a great idea.
Which is exactly why sites treat VPN blocks as low trust/reputation
"So, yep, I really wasn't even using my VPN that much recently - it's the same one I used for months.
And even bigger problem, of course, is - why just looking at my problem where a user with almost 1000 followers and a community that actively chats and spends a lot of time on X (usually, it's good for ad supported platforms).
So why even quite active paid users can't be checked in at least a day (I think it should be minutes but alas), why 5-7 days! ;-)"
They somehow have anti bot infra that is both incredibly annoying to real users and somewhat ineffective. And I'd even believe that they may have pretty good accuracy, but the sheer scale of the spam still impacts real users.
You can always ask for a refund in situations like this and resubscribe to x premium.
A real problem with these platforms not just x is mass reporting, fake DMCAs all pose vulnerabilities which are hard to address.
Even on HN, if you have non-conforming opinions of those with higher points, you will be censored, flagged etc.
Its not what it used to be, but HN is still better than most other places. I really think an LLM trained on its submissions/comment would be interesting
Childish billionaires develop grudges against meany journalists who report on them. Welcome to the backlash.