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Elon Musk’s X blocks links to Signal, the encrypted messaging service
Submitted 2 months ago by cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.disruptionist.com/p/elon-musks-x-blocks-links-to-signal
Comments
bstix@feddit.dk 2 months ago
steal_your_face@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Is signal foss?
gandhibobandhi@feddit.org 2 months ago
Yeah look: github.com/signalapp
oldfart@lemm.ee 2 months ago
It’s source-available
misk@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
I was waiting for such endorsement, maybe my friends will switch now.
cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Agree this reinforce that signal is good for now.
fushuan@lemm.ee 2 months ago
In kinda pissed with them not agreeing to the chat app interoperability protocolo though, i want to delete whatsapp so bad…
cyborganism@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
They also block any content, even private messages that contain Bluesky for example.
hddsx@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Time to create redsky, yellowsky, and pinksky URL forwarders
Damage@feddit.it 2 months ago
Redground
Probius@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
I think we need laws against platforms censoring discussion of their rivals, particularly with shadow bans and shadow delistings.
cyborganism@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
You wish. It’s not gonna happen with these douchebags in power.
morrowind@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
like anti-competitive laws? We have those. They tend to rely on certain people enforcing them though
Schlemmy@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
It was never about free speech
_haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Very free speech absolutist of him.
chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
Stovetop@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Didn’t Signal get big after Musk endorsed it? What gives?
cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
4years ago yeah mashable.com/article/elon-musk-signal
jqubed@lemmy.world 2 months ago
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 2 months ago
saying there are unspecified “known vulnerabilities” within Signal
His source: Trust me bro
Ulrich@feddit.org 2 months ago
Not really. It’s still not big. It definitely got bigger after he supported it though.
Ulrich@feddit.org 2 months ago
Here are some workarounds:
- Don’t use Xitter
- Use your phone number
- Use a URL shortener
He’s not doing anything except getting more bad press for himself.
o_arguido@lemmy.world 2 months ago
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 2 months ago
You can’t change the world if you don’t try at all. What a braindead take…
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 2 months ago
And they wouldn’t be alone if their family came with them
BigBrainBrett2517@lemmy.world 2 months ago
“You can check out any time you like… But you can never leeeave.”
Turbonics@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
Leaving is never really an option. But running the two apps side by side still works.
o_arguido@lemmy.world 2 months ago
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.
Xed@lemm.ee 2 months ago
I’ve never used whats app and I never plan to. Recently I’ve been trying Line for messaging my family abroad and I like how it’s a Japanese/ Korean app so I can get away from American corporations
DarkFuture@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Been using Signal for years. Love it.
Makes sense than an anti-free speech dipshit like Elon Musk would oppose it.
kokesh@lemmy.world 2 months ago
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 2 months ago
I don’t think it is a good idea to block twitter completely. Some countries use twitter for official announcements, including emergency warning.
vandsjov@feddit.dk 2 months ago
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.
kokesh@lemmy.world 2 months ago
My country doesn’t and hopefully others will follow.
DarkFuture@lemmy.world 2 months ago
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 2 months ago
@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.com 2 months ago
Interesting, I did not know about that app tox.chat/index.html
perestroika@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Tox is nice.
The typical pattern over here: if someone uses Signal, you guess they’re some military type (wants things to be secure, but wants it easy). If someone uses Tox, you guess they’re some hacker / anarchist type (wants things to be secure, but also anonymizable, even if it’s a bit harder).
ATDA@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Sounds like that censorship conservatives are all up in a row about… Oh not anymore fancy that
monotremata@lemmy.ca 2 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.
sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
They have a pattern of trying something and seeing how far they can get. Then they’ll say it was an oversight or a joke.
Someone recently called it similar to “reconnaissance in force” by the military – you go out with an uncommitted force and learn from the kind of resistance you get so you can be more effective.
The point is “mistakes” like these are not benign, or at least should not be treated as benign, since we can’t ever really know for sure.
monotremata@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Yeah. I thought it was important context that they had backpedalled, but I did not intend to downplay the severity of the issue.
takeiteasypolicy@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I would really like to know who is using ‘X’ now ? I mean apart from Musk and his bot army
TWB0109@lemmy.one 2 months ago
A lot of people unfortunately. Specially people outside the US, I think mastodon is ready for people to switch, but nobody does, the most they do is switch to bluesky
Hazelnutcookiez@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Unfortunately fedverse isn’t really ready for the general population, it’s why so many people flocked to bluesky over mastodon. I know I prefer blueskys UI and features over what Mastodon has to offer.
Though Tumblr is planning to enter the fedverse so maybe that’ll help somehow.
DarkFuture@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Racists and other easily influenced weak-minded individuals.
Echolynx@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Unfortunately, a lot of official government services and representatives are still using it. I saw someone reference a Twitter post about that Canadian plane crash, for instance.
Tire@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
A bunch of undecided voter types that pay zero attention to anything that isn’t their hobbies.
Hazelnutcookiez@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Lots of people still use it, obviously musk fans, people who actually make a living off of content creation it’s hard to move a entire fandom to a new platform.
Shardikprime@lemmy.world 2 months ago
No one outside the USA cares about the politics of who owns what social network
Crazy I know
PassingThrough@lemm.ee 2 months ago
So what’s the opinion here between Signal and SimpleX?
Signal gets all the attention, and seems more approachable but ties to a phone number which can be a big deal.
SimpleX ties to nothing but I could absolutely see people I know fucking it up and wondering where their “account” went.
So, Signal as an common man’s adoptable compromise and SimpleX to nerd out with full “opsec” and disposability? That about right?
SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 2 months ago
SimpleX sounds like herpes.
MisterD@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
So now we know what he kid’s nickname will be when he gets herpes in high school
Illecors@lemmy.cafe 2 months ago
I’m trying to use simplex, mainly for the instance’s chat. 2 things to say:
- notifications work perfectly even without play store
- every device has a separate account - I can’t reuse the same one. Not the end of the world, but it’s really annoying
PassingThrough@lemm.ee 2 months ago
From the looks of it, the variety of ways you can purposefully or accidentally destroy your local database, and the several options to automatically delete messages, really gives me the feeling SimpleX is intended to be extremely disposable and deniable.
After playing with it I just don’t see it being used for anything expected to be convenient or ongoing. Regarding the one device per account thing, I think the whole point is you just protect your one app, nobody is sneaking in your laptop or tablet, no remote leaks possible from a sync engine. On iOS you can link to a desktop app, but your phone must remain not just on, but in the app and on the pair screen. One twitch out, PC disconnects.
Feels like something for journalists, whistleblowers, protesters, and all the bad ones. It’s a burner app for your burner phone.
hossein@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
Signal has been under way more scrutiny than SimpleX. In both academic papers and security audits.
PanArab@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Twitter should have been regulated as a common carrier and one rich asshole shouldn’t have been allowed to buy it, regardless of their politics
unphazed@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Honestly I feel all news and social messenging services would be better served if they were forced to be public owned.
SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You know, for a free speech supporter, he sure seems to hate it when people speak freely.
wewbull@feddit.uk 2 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 2 months ago
And when you say freely you mean hate.
Ulrich@feddit.org 2 months ago
Not really true. His supporters are allowed to speak freely as well.
Ulrich@feddit.org 2 months ago
“Free speech absolutist”*
Grassgrowz@lemmy.world 2 months ago
hes quite the selective speech supporter
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 months ago
He absolutely wants to support the speech he agrees with. The rest can get fucked.