If you embed tweets on a website you can still see the individual tweet. Who knows, maybe they'll kill that feature too eventually. But for now, embedded tweets can still appear here, you just can't click it to view the tweet at Twitter, or view the account's profile, unless you login. No seeing comments unless you log in.
This is a really dumb move. If you want to view an account, let's say a weather account for example, you must login first to even view the profile.
NHC for example:
https://twitter.com/NHC_Atlantic
You can't view it if not logged in.
That means that for anyone who wants to use Twitter, beyond seeing embedded tweets, you will be required to login. So for real time events, you will be required to login before viewing info that is important. I think this radically changes Twitter. I hope Musk either changes it or it leads to Twitter's further decline. Twitter should not be used for disseminating information any longer like it was, like for government and specifically important updates, like from the police for example. If something was posted on Twitter, and nowhere else, it would not viewable by people who haven't logged in, including those that don't have an account. So they wouldn't have access to that information. At least not easily. You could Google that Twitter account if it's popular and see the latest tweets, though I'm not sure how up to date that is. Google has had a partnership with Twitter for a long time, getting access to tweets quickly that I have seen for popular accounts. (some in seconds) Not sure about others. But that's not a substitute for being able to scroll through an account's tweets on their main Twitter profile page. There are life threatening situations in which social media, especially Twitter, can help to view more information about something. Not just from witnesses to an event, but police and media too. If there was an active shooter situation for example, and you wanted to get information quick, a school, police or media Twitter account would be where you would want to check. Now you would need to login first. That's just not how Twitter was previously designed.
If there were a really popular alternative, I would celebrate Twitter's continued downfall, but the things it has provided in the past, and may to some extent still provide, are important. Facebook/Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and whatever else is out there, just operate differently. If you want to get out a small amount of information quickly to everyone, Twitter has been the best way. But no more. I was mad when they made the search feature not work for people not logged in. I didn't expect the whole site to go that way. |