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cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com to Technology@lemmy.worldEnglish · 4 months ago

Elon Musk’s X blocks links to Signal, the encrypted messaging service

www.disruptionist.com

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Elon Musk’s X blocks links to Signal, the encrypted messaging service

www.disruptionist.com

cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com to Technology@lemmy.worldEnglish · 4 months ago
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  • SendMePhotos@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    You know, for a free speech supporter, he sure seems to hate it when people speak freely.

    • wewbull@feddit.uk
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      4 months ago

      He wants to speak freely, but he doesn’t want to afford anyone else the same right.

      It’s not an uncommon stance, but it’s a hypocritical one.

      • WolfmanEightySix@piefed.social
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        And when you say freely you mean hate.

        • wewbull@feddit.uk
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          4 months ago

          In his case.

      • Ulrich@feddit.org
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        4 months ago

        Not really true. His supporters are allowed to speak freely as well.

    • Ulrich@feddit.org
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      4 months ago

      “Free speech absolutist”*

    • Grassgrowz@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      hes quite the selective speech supporter

    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      He absolutely wants to support the speech he agrees with. The rest can get fucked.

  • bstix@feddit.dk
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    4 months ago

    Only the cool kids know where to get FOSS.

    somepusher

    • steal_your_face@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      Is signal foss?

      • gandhibobandhi@feddit.org
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        4 months ago

        Yeah look: https://github.com/signalapp

        • treadful@lemmy.zip
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          4 months ago

          Their backend is closed source.

          [EDIT: Incorrect, see below]

          • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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            4 months ago

            https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server

            On Wikipedia it says the servers are open source but spam prevention is proprietary.

            • treadful@lemmy.zip
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              4 months ago

              Thanks for the correction. That’s pretty rad. Now I’m wondering if that’s a wrong memory or if it was released in the last few years.

              • Adam@doomscroll.n8e.dev
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                4 months ago

                There was a fuss a while back since the released source appeared to be waaaay out of date compared to what was being used.

                They came out and said that they wanted the usernames feature to be developed fully before it got pushed public. Which they then did.

      • oldfart@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        It’s source-available

  • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    They also block any content, even private messages that contain Bluesky for example.

    • hddsx@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      Time to create redsky, yellowsky, and pinksky URL forwarders

      • Damage@feddit.it
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        4 months ago

        Redground

    • Probius@sopuli.xyz
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      4 months ago

      I think we need laws against platforms censoring discussion of their rivals, particularly with shadow bans and shadow delistings.

      • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
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        4 months ago

        You wish. It’s not gonna happen with these douchebags in power.

        • Probius@sopuli.xyz
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          4 months ago

          That’s the sad truth.

      • morrowind@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        like anti-competitive laws? We have those. They tend to rely on certain people enforcing them though

  • misk@sopuli.xyz
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    4 months ago

    I was waiting for such endorsement, maybe my friends will switch now.

    • cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      4 months ago

      Agree this reinforce that signal is good for now.

    • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      In kinda pissed with them not agreeing to the chat app interoperability protocolo though, i want to delete whatsapp so bad…

  • Schlemmy@lemmy.ml
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    4 months ago

    It was never about free speech

  • _haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    Very free speech absolutist of him.

  • Chemical Wonka@discuss.tchncs.de
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    4 months ago

    1000057228

  • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Been using Signal for years. Love it.

    Makes sense than an anti-free speech dipshit like Elon Musk would oppose it.

    • That Weird Vegan@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 months ago

      same. No stupid gimmicks and whatever. Just secured messaging.

  • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Didn’t Signal get big after Musk endorsed it? What gives?

    • cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      4 months ago

      4years ago yeah https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-signal

    • jqubed@lemmy.world
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      Yes, but then last year he started saying it had known vulnerabilities that weren’t being fixed, around the same time Telegram was attacking Signal’s credibility. I seem to remember him outright endorsing Telegram but have only done a quick search and that hasn’t popped up.

      • carrylex@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        saying there are unspecified “known vulnerabilities” within Signal

        His source: Trust me bro

    • philodendron@lemdro.id
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      Yup. I started using it in part because of his tweet

    • Ulrich@feddit.org
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      Not really. It’s still not big. It definitely got bigger after he supported it though.

  • o_arguido@lemmy.world
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    It’s not easy to leave WhatsApp. I’ve transitioned to Signal a month ago and lost contact with a lot of people. My friends and family think I’m going crazy for attitudes like these. “You can’t change the world on your own”… like that was the plan 😅

    Thanks Musk, that was the motivation I needed to keep away from WhatsApp.

    Obviously not a X/Twitter user, I’m not a fkin idiot.

    • HEXN3T@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      You can’t change the world if you don’t try at all. What a braindead take…

      • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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        And they wouldn’t be alone if their family came with them

        • HEXN3T@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          4 months ago

          Literally this

    • BigBrainBrett2517@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      “You can check out any time you like… But you can never leeeave.”

    • Turbonics@lemmy.sdf.org
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      Leaving is never really an option. But running the two apps side by side still works.

      • o_arguido@lemmy.world
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        It varies, I guess. Some people might not be able to leave due to their job for example.

        I left, it’s an option for me. And I’m not coming back, I don’t want to admit defeat.

        I’m in an island now, it’s annoying how these companies penetrated our lives.

        • Teknevra@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          4 months ago

          What about using Matrix ?

          I’m pretty sure that you can bridge Matrix with WhatsApp.

          Matrix.Org - Bridges

          https://github.com/mautrix/whatsapp

          • o_arguido@lemmy.world
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            I’ll check that out. Thanks!

            • Teknevra@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              4 months ago

              Welcome

      • fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee
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        If someone is only willing to communicate with you through WhatsApp, they don’t value your friendship.

    • Coolkat@slrpnk.net
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      4 months ago

      I managed to get my parents and brother to switch to signal two years ago, never switched back and it’s always working, very easy to use. I’m pretty sure whatsapp will enshitify at such a rate that signal will absorb the users.

    • courval@lemmy.world
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      Keep on pushing, I’ve been transitioning to Signal and now I’ve got a handful of good friends on there. People are realising what’s going on but be mindful that a lot of people have businesses and work that depend on it… They are hostages. But if everyone changes gradually it will reach a point they won’t be anymore. Keep on preaching brother!

    • prinzmegahertz@lemm.ee
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      It’s a slow and constant process of onboarding people to signal. I managed to onboard my local gaming group into using Signal after Trump got elected.

  • melroy@kbin.melroy.org
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    Free speech but no Signal? Red flag.

  • Ulrich@feddit.org
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    4 months ago

    Here are some workarounds:

    1. Don’t use Xitter
    2. Use your phone number
    3. Use a URL shortener

    He’s not doing anything except getting more bad press for himself.

  • monotremata@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    Supposedly they’re unblocked again, but there’s been no explanation from Xitter about the issue. Definitely seems suspicious that this happened while DOGE is having trouble with whistleblowers using Signal, though.

    https://gizmodo.com/x-briefly-blocked-then-unblocked-signal-links-as-federal-workers-seek-security-2000564966

  • Kokesh@lemmy.world
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    I’ve blocked Twitter on my Adguard Home DNS already last year, so no “X” shit in my house/our mobile devices anywhere.

    • TheMachineStops@discuss.tchncs.de
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      I don’t think it is a good idea to block twitter completely. Some countries use twitter for official announcements, including emergency warning.

      • Kokesh@lemmy.world
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        My country doesn’t and hopefully others will follow.

        • TheMachineStops@discuss.tchncs.de
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          I hope so too, twitter is awful.

      • vandsjov@feddit.dk
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        That’s a weird reason to keep using X. Hopefully these places also does other forms of communications, otherwise it’s a sad state of affairs.

        • TheMachineStops@discuss.tchncs.de
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          They do have other ways such as SMS if it is critical, but most people simply share the twitter link via WhatsApp and you can be more updated by using twitter. Most people haven’t moved to Bluesky or Mastodon, so if there is flooding or heavy rain most people will share updates on their location via twitter and WhatsApp like for example flooded streets.

          https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3355402.3355408

          https://redlib.ducks.party/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/1hrgu3u/amber_alert_with_details_gated_behind_a_twitter/

      • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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        It’s always a good idea to block racist platforms lorded over by a troll who will delete comments that oppose him.

  • dsilverz@friendica.world
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    @cyrano The “problem” (actually, the feature) with those censorship algorithms is that they rely a lot on the “exact contents” of the message (“Scunthorpe Problem”), so X is probably programmed to detect the Signal’s domain and block due to the presence of such link (similar to how Facebook was/is blocking links to the largest PixelFed instances, and then they also decided to block links to DistroWatch and official websites from various Linux distros), so it’s not programmed (yet) to censor just the “hexadecimal/base64/whatever” portion of the link alone. And there’s where Tox could shine: a handle is literally a hexadecimal sequence, without Tox’s domains, without URI Schemas, just a bunch of digits and letters from A to F.

    I don’t know why Tox isn’t mentioned as a “instant messaging platform for whistleblowers”: it got Onion (Tor) tunneling possibility (as well as tunneling it through I2P outproxies because it actually accepts any kind of SOCKS5 proxy), it’s registration-less (even Matrix needs registration) so it’s effectively anonymous IMO.

    SimpleX seems to be that, too, although I didn’t have the opportunity to use it more than I used Tox. But from the little I’ve used it, it’s similar to Signal in the sense that it’s a link (and a large link) and not simply a hash/hex sequence.

    • cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      Interesting, I did not know about that app https://tox.chat/index.html

    • perestroika@lemm.ee
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      Tox is nice. My favourite flavour is qTox.

      The typical pattern over here: if someone uses Signal, you guess they’re some military type (wants things to be secure, doesn’t care much about anonymity, wants things to work one way and simply).

      If someone uses Tox, you guess they’re some hacker / anarchist type (wants things to be secure, but also anonymizable, wants things to be flexible, even if it can backfire).

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