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Elon Musk’s X blocks links to Signal, the encrypted messaging service
Submitted 4 days 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 4 days ago
steal_your_face@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
Is signal foss?
oldfart@lemm.ee 3 days ago
It’s source-available
misk@sopuli.xyz 4 days ago
I was waiting for such endorsement, maybe my friends will switch now.
cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
Agree this reinforce that signal is good for now.
fushuan@lemm.ee 3 days 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 4 days ago
They also block any content, even private messages that contain Bluesky for example.
hddsx@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
Time to create redsky, yellowsky, and pinksky URL forwarders
Damage@feddit.it 3 days ago
Redground
Probius@sopuli.xyz 4 days ago
I think we need laws against platforms censoring discussion of their rivals, particularly with shadow bans and shadow delistings.
cyborganism@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
You wish. It’s not gonna happen with these douchebags in power.
morrowind@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
like anti-competitive laws? We have those. They tend to rely on certain people enforcing them though
Schlemmy@lemmy.ml 4 days ago
It was never about free speech
_haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
Very free speech absolutist of him.
chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de 4 days ago
o_arguido@lemmy.world 3 days 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.
Xed@lemm.ee 16 hours 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
HEXN3T@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
You can’t change the world if you don’t try at all. What a braindead take…
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 2 days ago
And they wouldn’t be alone if their family came with them
BigBrainBrett2517@lemmy.world 2 days ago
“You can check out any time you like… But you can never leeeave.”
Turbonics@lemmy.sdf.org 2 days ago
Leaving is never really an option. But running the two apps side by side still works.
o_arguido@lemmy.world 2 days 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.
Stovetop@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Didn’t Signal get big after Musk endorsed it? What gives?
cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
4years ago yeah mashable.com/article/elon-musk-signal
jqubed@lemmy.world 4 days 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 4 days ago
saying there are unspecified “known vulnerabilities” within Signal
His source: Trust me bro
Ulrich@feddit.org 4 days ago
Not really. It’s still not big. It definitely got bigger after he supported it though.
DarkFuture@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Been using Signal for years. Love it.
Makes sense than an anti-free speech dipshit like Elon Musk would oppose it.
Ulrich@feddit.org 4 days 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.
kokesh@lemmy.world 3 days 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 3 days 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 3 days 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 3 days ago
My country doesn’t and hopefully others will follow.
DarkFuture@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It’s always a good idea to block racist platforms lorded over by a troll who will delete comments that oppose him.
monotremata@lemmy.ca 2 days 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.
takeiteasypolicy@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I would really like to know who is using ‘X’ now ? I mean apart from Musk and his bot army
TWB0109@lemmy.one 3 days 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 days 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 days ago
Racists and other easily influenced weak-minded individuals.
Echolynx@lemmy.zip 3 days 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 3 days ago
A bunch of undecided voter types that pay zero attention to anything that isn’t their hobbies.
Hazelnutcookiez@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days 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 days ago
No one outside the USA cares about the politics of who owns what social network
Crazy I know
dsilverz@friendica.world 4 days 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 4 days ago
Interesting, I did not know about that app tox.chat/index.html
perestroika@lemm.ee 3 days 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 4 days ago
Sounds like that censorship conservatives are all up in a row about… Oh not anymore fancy that
PassingThrough@lemm.ee 4 days 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 3 days ago
SimpleX sounds like herpes.
MisterD@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
So now we know what he kid’s nickname will be when he gets herpes in high school
hossein@lemmy.sdf.org 3 days ago
Signal has been under way more scrutiny than SimpleX. In both academic papers and security audits.
Illecors@lemmy.cafe 4 days 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 3 days 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.
PanArab@lemm.ee 2 days 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 days 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 4 days ago
You know, for a free speech supporter, he sure seems to hate it when people speak freely.
wewbull@feddit.uk 4 days 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 4 days ago
And when you say freely you mean hate.
Ulrich@feddit.org 4 days ago
Not really true. His supporters are allowed to speak freely as well.
Ulrich@feddit.org 4 days ago
“Free speech absolutist”*
Grassgrowz@lemmy.world 4 days ago
hes quite the selective speech supporter
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 4 days ago
He absolutely wants to support the speech he agrees with. The rest can get fucked.