Apparently there's no need for IP laws any more, so here's a way to archive high-fidelity Twitter data without signing up for an expensive API key. This is perfect for academics wishing to preserve Tweets, journalists wanting to download evidence, or simply embedding content without leaking user data back to Twitter. Table of Contentstl;drBackgroundEmbed CodeAPI CallOptionsOutputTweet With…
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What does it mean to block someone on a social media site? Way back in the mists of time, we dealt with trolls on Usenet with the almighty PLONK - PLaced On Newsgroup Killfile. It meant your newsreader never downloaded their posts. They could rant at you all day long, and you'd never hear from them. It's what we would nowadays call "Mute". But, whether you're on Usenet or a modern social…
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I logged into Twitter using a fresh account last week. No followers, no preferences set. The default experience was an unending slurry of racism and porn. I don't care to use Twitter any more. Whatever good that was there is now drowned in a cess-pit of violent filth. I still have a lot of Tweets embedded on this blog. Using WordPress, it was easy to paste in a link and have it converted to an…
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I logged into Twitter using a fresh account last week. No followers, no preferences set. The default experience was an unending slurry of racism and porn. I don't care to use Twitter any more. Whatever good that was there is now drowned in a cess-pit of violent filth. I still have a lot of Tweets embedded on this blog. Using WordPress, it was easy to paste in a link and have it converted to an…
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I remember seeing the original "A new decentralized microblogging platform" on HackerNews back in October 2016. A few weeks later, I joined - becoming the 7,112th user. As the years went on, my use of it waxed and waned. I started cross-posting to both Mastodon and Twitter. Gradually, I started spending more time on the Fediverse. Once Elon shat the bed on Twitter, I moved over completely. And, …
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My CDN just asked me for all my Twitter API keys... WTF? This would give them complete access to my app's Twitter account, the ability to send and receive messages, and anything else that my API key allows. Giving them - or anyone - the entire set of credentials would be a very bad idea. What's going on? Twitter's slow-motion collapse and hostility to developers is causing a whole bunch of…
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This blog uses WebMention technology. If you write an article on your website and mention one of my blog posts, I get a notification. That notification can then be published as a comment. It usually looks something like this: This means readers of my post can see where it has been mentioned around the web. They can read your article after reading mine. Nice! I've also set up a "bridge"…
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Because I don't trust Alan, the Hyperprat who now runs Twitter, I decided to download my Twitter archive before setting my account to dormant. About a decade ago, I wrote about how the Twitter archive works and where it is deficient. Things have got better, but there are still annoying limitations. For example, Hannah Kolbeck - founder of the Alt Text Reminder Bot recently pointed out that…
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Facebook Meta - like many other tech titans - has institutional Shiny Object Syndrome. It goes something like this: Launch a product to great fanfare Spend a few years hyping it as ✨the future✨ Stop answering emails and pull requests If you're lucky, announce that the product is abandoned but, more likely, just forget about it. Open Graph Protocol (OGP) is one of those products. The val…
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Back in June, I noticed a pretty insidious piece of Twitter spam. The "twoo.fun" website was claiming that it could tell you who visited your Twitter profile. That's pretty enticing! It's what LinkedIn uses to drive its premium product. Perhaps it would tell me if a potential employer was looking at my profile? Or if my crush kept visiting it!??!?!? So people visited the website and signed in…
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If you hang around on a social network long enough, you'll find the same tropes being repeated again and again. So, I thought I'd document some of the ones that I personally find annoying. This blog post is an extension of my moderately popular Twitter thread - with a bit more detail about why they are irritating. The Thief of Words .social-embed{all:unset;display:block;}.social-embed *…
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I've recently launched TweeView - a new way to visualise Twitter conversation threads in 2D and 3D. Sadly, I don't have a Virtual Reality system - feel free to buy me one! - but I have the next best thing. A web browser! Demo! Using the awesome power of A-Frame, here's a demo of how to view a conversation object as AR. Play! You can play with it yourself at TweeView.ml/ar. You will need…
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