[dmix]

> not the fact that twitter is hostile to unauthenticated user agents.

Yep, Twitter has had aggressive authentication gating for almost 2yrs now and HN frequently has Twitter links

[thih9]

HN often has twitter links when this is the primary source; in that case in comments there are usually links to mirrors or threadreader.

Here twitter is not the main source, there are better ones (both better quality and more user friendly).

I would like a rule to avoid submissions that are login walled unless this is the primary source and an open mirror is available.

[dmix]

I've been on HN since the very beginning and the solution has always been simple: if the post is auth/pay-walled then post archive links or copy paste the text in comments.

I get why there's noise about banning X suddenly but lets not pretend it's for sudden technical/UX concerns. No one is calling for NYT, WSJ, or WaPo submissions to be avoided. Twitter had auth gating for many years before Elon.

[thih9]

That’s my point; like I said:

> I would like a rule to avoid submissions that are login walled unless this is the primary source and an open mirror is available.

Twitter had auth gating but also mirrors; now Nitter is discontinued.

[dmix]

Fair enough. For the record I despise how bad twitters gating is :/

[bigmattystyles]

Am I remembering correctly that when Elon first took over, he took that gate down because of his whole free speech thing. I'm guessing they re-instated it as soon as it hit the bottom line. Makes me wonder if government should still rely on it for comms.

[petters]

Wasn't it because of extensive scraping?

[dmix]

One of the first things Twitter did post Elon was remove sign in gating then I guess the bankers pressed Elon and it went back up. Can't always do everything you want in business, I guess. Bills come first.

[Geee]

I think it was removed by geohot when he was in the house, but then reinstated after a while. I remember him railing against it.