r/technology Feb 17 '25

Social Media X is blocking links to Signal

https://www.theverge.com/news/613997/x-blocks-signal-me-links-errors
17.4k Upvotes

986 comments sorted by

3.2k

u/kixkato Feb 17 '25

This is the reason why no government or entity should ever be allowed a backdoor into any encryption system.

Next time any government wants to "protect the children" or insert other generic emotional reaction here by forcing backdoors into encryption systems, remember the overwhelming good things they for us.

373

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '25

[deleted]

134

u/josh_the_misanthrope Feb 17 '25

That's why we use open source stuff like Signal, and why you should verify signatures of compiled binaries I'd you don't want to compile from source yourself.

While it's not impossible to introduce a weakness in open source, it's a lot more difficult because there are so many eyes on it. It would be like committing a crime in time square on NYE.

52

u/Old-Adhesiveness-156 Feb 17 '25

There are examples of holes being put into open source projects. I bet some are uncaught. Look at the XZ Utils Backdoor as an example of one that was caught, barely.

72

u/Patch86UK Feb 17 '25

It's a basic tenet of security that it's impossible to reduce the risk of a successful attack to zero. A sufficiently determined attacker with access to sufficient resources will always win eventually.

The aim of the game is to make a successful attack as hard as possible. To reduce attack vectors, increase detection rates, and increase the cost to the attacker such that you reduce the pool of viable attackers to as small a group as you can.

If open source development methods mean that a larger proportion of vulnerabilities are caught, then it's doing its job. The fact that you can't possibly guarantee that you've reduced it to zero doesn't negate the value of reducing it at all.

8

u/Old-Adhesiveness-156 Feb 17 '25

Of course. I would actually trust open source over proprietary.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '25

Fascinating story

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u/TbonerT Feb 17 '25

While it's not impossible to introduce a weakness in open source, it's a lot more difficult because there are so many eyes on it. It would be like committing a crime in time square on NYE.

This isn’t always the case. Many high-profile flaws have been found that were introduced years earlier.

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u/rpkarma Feb 17 '25

You’re right, but the we’re found! That’s more than we can say for a lot of closed source versions.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '25 edited Feb 17 '25

[deleted]

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u/KerouacsGirlfriend Feb 17 '25

Not looking forward to the Great De-Anonymization.

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u/DuckDatum Feb 17 '25

If a company truly cared about security, they’d leak the information that reveals the back door. Do it from a vpn on a random 4chan under a throwaway account. Then go “discover” the leak to give it some attention. Companies can follow an open source model that implements open source protocols designed and reviewed for ensuring no back doors exist.

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u/Temp_84847399 Feb 17 '25

I've seen people in this very sub, advocate for law enforcement to have access to all files on people's computers so they can automatically search for CSAM.

Queue up, "What's wrong with that? It will only be used to catch pedos..." responses. SMH

29

u/SwiftySanders Feb 17 '25

Like they haven’t been known to doctor up evidence anyway.

15

u/kixkato Feb 17 '25

https://youtu.be/VPBH1eW28mo?si=elEm2S5TtV2gnF0H

Fantastic quote about that at the end of this video.

21

u/EccentricPayload Feb 17 '25

Almost had it with Telegram til Macron jailed him for it. Daddy always gets his access.

62

u/jfkfnndnd Feb 17 '25

Telegram can read your messages FYI, there is no E2E encryption if you are not in secret chat

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8.9k

u/Culverin Feb 17 '25

And this is how you can tell that Signal is legit.

Do you really need a better endorsement? 

1.9k

u/Ghost_shell89 Feb 17 '25

lol first thought: download signal now

208

u/weedboi69 Feb 17 '25

I fell like I e heard this somewhere before

198

u/PM_ME_FIREFLY_QUOTES Feb 17 '25

You can't stop the signal, Mal.

119

u/Keswik Feb 17 '25

Guy killed me Mal. He killed me with a sword. How weird is that?

54

u/Shikaku Feb 17 '25

Fuck you, fine, I'll watch it again for the millionth time.

30

u/buckeye27fan Feb 17 '25

Best Star Wars movie in the last 40 years.

12

u/capellanx Feb 17 '25

I did really enjoy Rogue One.

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u/kempnelms Feb 17 '25

Yes. Everyone working the Democratic campaigns in 2024 used Signal, for a reason.

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u/Lamlot Feb 17 '25

I’ve never heard of it but want it now.

245

u/UGH-ThatsAJackdaw Feb 17 '25

Really? its about the only quality messaging tool if you actually care about privacy. Other apps that claim to be e2e encrypted tend to leave themselves little loopholes in that claim. You think WhatsApp doesnt have the keys to your messages and wont hand them over to the government when asked? Think again. On Signal the only people with the encryption keys to your messages are you and the recipient.

Signal doesnt fuck around with Law Enforcement:

https://signal.org/bigbrother/

177

u/housustaja Feb 17 '25

You forgot to mention the most important part:

Signal is made by a NONPROFIT organization. It does not gain any advantage by selling your data (which it doesn't do unlike Whatsapp etc)

122

u/FlowersPaintings Feb 17 '25 edited Feb 17 '25

Both Swedish government officials and now the Swedish defence force use it officially since it's so secure!

I'm sure there are other examples out there.

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u/hughk Feb 17 '25

I believe the EU is now recommending it in parliament instead of WhatsApp and Teams.

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u/rizzeau Feb 17 '25

Also Dutch government. I installed it when I did a project there, for (group) communication. That was already in 2017/2018.

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u/housustaja Feb 17 '25

God damn sometimes I can't feel anything but pride in how we roll in the Nordic countries <3

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u/OutsidePerson5 Feb 17 '25

Definitely download it now, I can bet that Trump will be trying to ban it soon.

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u/jaywalkingbird Feb 17 '25

Didn’t Elon himself say a few years ago that signal was even more secure than telegram? When people were talking about leaving whatsapp?

348

u/Patriark Feb 17 '25

DOGE also uses Signal for internal comms, so Musk is a hypocrite as always.

106

u/cadium Feb 17 '25

He wants his crimes to be hidden away and encrypted and doesn't want anyone to leak info from his recent actions.

56

u/Patriark Feb 17 '25

Signal works. It is a great technology. Banning it on X while using it himself, however, is hypocritical to the level of no-one should ever trust anything this guy says. He is mad with power-lust and will say whatever he believes is beneficial at the moment. No honor nor guiding principles of conduct. An evil man.

35

u/thewags05 Feb 17 '25

Does that in itself violate record keeping laws.

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u/cjthomp Feb 17 '25

Add it to the list.

8

u/Xombiekat Feb 17 '25

We're in a post-law society for Conservatives. Even the constitution is just a suggestion now.

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u/grumpyzerg Feb 17 '25

Telegram is NOT secure. By default it's a big mess

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u/McFlyParadox Feb 17 '25

Yeah. It's "secure" from your ISP, maybe. If you use their separate E2E encrypted messages.l, rather than the type it defaults to. But telegram is not secure from Nation States who want to read your messages, because it's a hodgepodge of broken encryptions that have been layered to "unbreak" them, so it's safe to assume that it can be broken and the exploits exist inside of a SCIF somewhere. And because it's closed source, no one can really begin to figure out where the weaknesses are without spending a lot of resources (hence it taking a nation state)

Signal, on the other hand, is entirely open source, so anyone qualified to find an exploit (and/or patch it) can. This means flaws don't go undetected or unpatched for long.

Telegram is private(-ish), Signal is secure.

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u/gentlegreengiant Feb 17 '25

Yes and now him trying to block it is an even bigger endorsement.

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u/besmarques Feb 17 '25

well, it worked for me. lol

60

u/ovirt001 Feb 17 '25

Telegram isn't secure so it's a pretty low bar. That said nothing has disproven signal's security so it seems to be the best option.

32

u/c0LdFir3 Feb 17 '25

Edward Snowden exclusively uses signal and is still alive. That’s a pretty damn good endorsement. 

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u/mainman879 Feb 17 '25

Signal has nothing to do with him being alive. He is only alive because Russia wants him to be. Signal was released after he fled the US.

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u/shoneysbreakfast Feb 17 '25

The reason he is banning it on Twitter is because journalists routinely link their Signal accounts so that whistleblowers can contact them and he doesn’t like that. It has nothing to do with the Signal itself.

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u/deadsoulinside Feb 17 '25

But now that Elon is part of the government, they of course hate when the citizens use it.

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u/Pinkboyeee Feb 17 '25

I posted this in another thread of someone asking why to use signal over whatsapp. Maybe it can be used to help convince some of your friends to download it

It's also completely open source and independently validated for security. There are no backdoors and EU has put signal in their crosshairs to scan messages before encrypted. Signal foundation has said they won't be able to serve EU if that occurs.

Russia has also removed signal from their country, other authoritarian countries as well. There's a censorship circumvention checkbox so if your country blocks signal, someone can make a node with a VPN to route traffic within the country to signal's servers.

Source code: https://github.com/signalapp

Info about leaving EU: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40551260

And below is a screenshot of signal showing the censorship circumvention toggle (settings/privacy/advance) ** Not here due to subreddit rules

Edit: thanks for the award! I linked this below but will put it here for more complete post:

Setup a proxy node and VPN and you can be the inside man keeping your guys connected https://signal.org/blog/proxy-please

It took some research to find that article, but it links to source code and other info. The source code is here, and docker is pretty simple to setup. There's some services online to setup remote instances using vps, but you can run and host it locally too with docker and a few terminal commands.

Source code for convenience:

https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-TLS-Proxy

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u/ZenGeneral Feb 17 '25

Bro you are a hero 💪 thank you for the information. Been trying to get some friends to move over to signal; this may be the info I needed all rolled up in one neat comment.

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u/spekxo Feb 17 '25

My first thought as well…

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u/GreenLanturn Feb 17 '25

Download it now before the App Stores delist it.

26

u/InsipidCelebrity Feb 17 '25

I love being on Android.

16

u/kingpangolin Feb 17 '25

Android without graphene or similar is way worse than IOS when it comes to privacy

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u/PM_NUDES_4_DEGRADING Feb 17 '25

But with Graphene is way better, to be fair.

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u/Lumpzor Feb 17 '25

I genuinely think he means the ease of sideloading

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u/Cinimi Feb 17 '25

Musk is a bigger opponent of Free speech than what came before, he does not give a fuck about freedom of speech, he just want it to be his turn to speak up while he silence others.

He even personally banned people, overthing something so petty that he was called out for faking being a good gamer in diablo/PoE

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2.5k

u/Universal_Anomaly Feb 17 '25

"Free Speech Absolutist."

720

u/Kasyx709 Feb 17 '25

abolitionist*

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u/Universal_Anomaly Feb 17 '25

That would certainly have been more accurate.

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u/Direct_Witness1248 Feb 18 '25

Imagine if it was just an auto-correct typo this whole time.

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u/fenexj Feb 17 '25

abolitionist

Abortionist

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u/randomtask Feb 17 '25

This statement makes sense when you realize Nazi speech and hate speech generally is banned in Europe, and for very good historical reasons. He wants the tools to whip up the population into a fervor so that he can grab the levers of power and take over their citizen-run democracies.

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u/dope049 Feb 17 '25

“for me, not thee”

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '25

Oh signal is for sure going to be targeted soon, “they are doing illegal things on it, must be banned” = can’t have the proletariat be talking to each other in a way we can’t monitor.

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u/VeeDubBug Feb 17 '25

My sister has already spouted off on how the pedos and terrorists are using Signal after mom tried getting the family moved over to it.

I pointed out, well if encryption is the concern, isn't that a glowing review of the app?

She didn't like that. 💀😂 She then brought up how bad Discord is too.

393

u/Asisreo1 Feb 17 '25

Did you know that pedophiles and terrorists breathe oxygen!!! Oxygen is just air for criminals! Boycott oxygen!

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u/Routine_Librarian330 Feb 17 '25

The same holds true of dihydrogenmonoxide. It has been found in both terrorists' and pedophiles' systems. A chemical analysis by British scientists has even found large quantities of dihydrogenmonoxide in babys' food! We need a ban NOW! DOWN WITH DIHYDROGENMONOXIDE! 

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u/Aimhere2k Feb 18 '25

And let's not forget hydrocarbons! Hydrocarbons are literally the foundation that pedos and terrorists are built on! The government needs to take ACTION and destroy all hydrocarbons, for the Greater Good!

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u/OutsidePerson5 Feb 17 '25

After Musk took over Twitter a lot more pedophile material started showing up, and after he personally reinstated a Nazi account that also posted kiddie porn the pedos realized Twitter was now their place to be.

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u/PLeuralNasticity Feb 17 '25

https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2024/11/26/tesla-named-deadliest-car-brand-in-america/76573878007/

I've been saying for a long time that he has never been anything but a puppet frontman for clandestine operations of the FSB for Putin or his allies ie. Netanyahu/Xi/Erdogan/Modi/MBS/Iran etc...

My profile is mostly comments about FSBelon

Imagine you were planning another coup. Would Teslas be good surveillance and then robomurdertaxis?

Would buying Twitter give you access to massive volumes of kompromat on huge swaths of individuals?

Would Starlink or PayPal give you any information that would be potentially valuable to find vulnerabilities? Starlink in the super rich especially with their yachts.

What neighborhoods do Teslas tend to be parked in and where do they tend to be driven to work and by what demographics?

Would full access to every camera on every Tesla potentially be valuable to gather intelligence?

Would Putin want very app associated with Elon or his businesses to be malware or have a malware build ready?

Just scratching the surface but I encourage people to look at your understanding of Elon and his companies through the lens of it all being on Putins orders, just like Trump.

https://cybernews.com/news/elon-musk-twitter-acquisition-russia-investment/

https://jalopnik.com/tesla-fanboy-shadowbanned-from-x-for-complaining-abou-1851639230

Elon is a kompromised pedophile Putin puppet and has been since before he started Zip2 and before his first trip to Russia in October 2001.

Trump since the eighties

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/19/trump-first-moscow-trip-215842/

Child Rape Tapes convey more complete control than anything. Almost all of their top puppets are owned through proof of them raping children. It's the only way the FSB/Mossad/CCP are comfortable investing so much power in them. Bribery doesn't come close to sufficient with how much financial/political power they concentrate in their upper echelon of puppets. Trump/Thiel/Vance/Peterson/Jordan/Carlson/Thomas/Diddy/Drake/MrBeast to name a very small sample across different parts of society. Many for a long time, but Trump since the eighties is one of the longest tenured.

In case people are confused who Produces/Distributes the vast majority of CSAM

Here's a bit about Ghislaines dad from Wikipedia.

"The Foreign Office suspected Maxwell of being a secret agent of a foreign government, possibly a double agent or a triple agent, and "a thoroughly bad character and almost certainly financed by Russia". He had known links to the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), to the Soviet KGB, and to the Israeli intelligence service Mossad.[60] Six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence services attended Maxwell's funeral in Israel, while Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir eulogised him and stated: "He has done more for Israel than can today be told."[61]

https://www.torquenews.com/1083/tesla-exploded-bomb-after-fiery-crash-shrapnel-takes-down-passerby

https://jalopnik.com/tesla-workers-trained-autopilot-to-ignore-road-signs-so-1851642989

https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/04/27/twitter-has-complied-with-almost-every-government-request-for-censorship-since-musk-took-over-report-finds/

"Of the 971 government requests Twitter has received since Musk took over six months ago, the company has fully complied with 808 of them and partially complied with 154, according to Rest of World’s report."

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4457311-putin-praises-elon-musk-a-smart-guy/

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-disrupting-elon-musk-starlink-satellite-service-ukraine-jamming-report-2024-5

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/29/first-edition-israel-icc-investigation

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-photo-with-ghislaine-maxwell-conversation-destroy-internet-report-2022-10

https://theintercept.com/2023/03/23/peter-thiel-jeff-thomas/

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/10/business/angela-chao-death/index.html

“I think there’s no stopping Elon Musk,” Putin told Carlson after the pundit asked him about the growing prevalence of artificial intelligence. “He will do as he sees fit. Nevertheless, you’ll need to find some common ground with him. Search for ways to persuade him. I think he’s a smart person. I truly believe he is. So you’ll need to reach an agreement with him because this process needs to be formalized and subjected to certain rules.”

Beware Leon's razor

"Incomeptence, in the limit, is indistinguishable from sabotage

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u/FewCelebration9701 Feb 17 '25

Is that Nick Fuentes by any chance? Kind of sad that I have to ask because reinstating those types of accounts happened more than once.

If it is, I never heard about the porn part of that. I guess it wouldn't really surprise me if it were about that person. Not exactly a paragon of virtue the things he believes, let alone the things he says out loud.

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u/OutsidePerson5 Feb 17 '25

Naah, it was Dominick McGee a rando Nazi troll most people have never heard of until he started posting explicit CSAM on his Twitter account. He was banned, per Twitter's policy. Later that day Elon Musk personally reinstated him to great cheering from the right wing crowd.

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u/tapdancingtoes Feb 17 '25

There was also another guy who posted a thumbnail from one of the most infamous “hurtcore” films and he unbanned the account.

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u/Outlulz Feb 18 '25

Trump just invited him to the White House to be a guest of honor for Black History Month by the way.

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u/xzxfdasjhfhbkasufah Feb 17 '25

Pedos use cars and houses. Only one thing to do.

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u/vintageballs Feb 17 '25

Well discord really is bad though. Not encrypted, dubious data use in the past.

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u/gamemaster257 Feb 17 '25

Source on dubious data use?

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u/CadeMan011 Feb 17 '25

I'm guessing she loves telegram, though, right?

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u/VeeDubBug Feb 17 '25

I actually have no idea on that one. She uses Facebook, Whatsapp, and Messenger predominately.

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u/ComprehensiveWord201 Feb 17 '25

I see she loves selling her data

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u/nilsph Feb 17 '25

*giving her data away

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u/j_demur3 Feb 17 '25

I don't have any issue with Signal being effectively a free for all, that's just the price of privacy and like, if people want to talk about criminal activities they'll always find a safe way to do it.

But then when it comes to WhatsApp, they tell us it's fully private and end-to-end encrypted with no compromises (apart from a report button that sends messages from your phone to HQ) and if that's true they have no knowledge or control about shady shit being discussed.

It's like, they either are secure and therefore there's nothing stopping anything that's happening on Signal happening there or they aren't and can see your messages despite insisting they can't. They can't win at one without losing at the other, like, it'll be interesting to see their response if a high-profile crime is or isn't stopped and it comes out that things were organised via WhatsApp.

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u/jameslosey Feb 17 '25

I doubt it, unless the administration finds an alternative for their own use. The first Trump administration found uses for signal to avoid records of their own communications such as for communications around January 6.

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u/Spaduf Feb 17 '25

The military also uses signal for some official communication. They certainly have the ability to roll their own and it's likely the fascists would just move there.

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u/EuenovAyabayya Feb 17 '25

Most MIL uses of it are off-book, though.

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u/Spaduf Feb 17 '25

Not in the guard. Not sure about otherwise.

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u/CIDR-ClassB Feb 17 '25

Nope. Signal is Elon’s preferred method of communication, as it is for many high-profile people even in government.

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u/One_pop_each Feb 17 '25

We use it in the military bc it’s the most secure compared to whatsapp/telegram

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/SgathTriallair Feb 17 '25

This isn't a slippery slope, this is a waterslide.

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u/ChiefSmexy Feb 17 '25

This is crazy considering that 2-3 years ago Elon endorsed signal.

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u/simask234 Feb 17 '25

That tweet is still there lmao. (screenshot)
Also note the date when it was made.

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u/Piett_1313 Feb 17 '25

The date… wow that is unfuckingbelievable.

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u/IfYouGotALonelyHeart Feb 17 '25

I wish someone would take care of this problem already.

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u/teejay_the_exhausted Feb 17 '25

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u/simask234 Feb 18 '25

That is certainly a highly effective solution...

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u/Xillyfos Feb 17 '25

Holy shit, that date. That was a message directly to the traitors.

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u/blackweebow Feb 17 '25

For fucks sake..... how could anyone actually respect people that back this man?

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u/Kroggol Feb 17 '25

Musk himself ages like milk

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u/CreasingUnicorn Feb 17 '25

The current administration has turned 180 on a lot of the things that they were previously advocating for, I believe it is because the goals have changed from "convince people to vote for us" to "maintain power by any means necessary". Funny how that works.

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u/Excelius Feb 17 '25

In this case, they saw themselves as the insurgents who might need to hide their activities from the government. Now they are the government.

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u/deadsoulinside Feb 17 '25

But now Elon is the government and the government does not like apps that cannot allow them to spy on you.

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u/ILoveSpankingDwarves Feb 17 '25

But now Putin owns Musk

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u/Objective_Resist_735 Feb 17 '25

I don't know what Signal is, but I want it now. Great advertising.

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u/SaltyDolphin78 Feb 17 '25

encrypted messaging app

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u/rebbsitor Feb 17 '25

Is it like Whatsapp?

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u/False-Ad273 Feb 17 '25

Yes but better.

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u/xraynorx Feb 17 '25

Like way better.

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u/APKID716 Feb 17 '25

Considering Whatsapp is owned by Facebook it’s almost certainly stealing data in some capacity

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u/son1dow Feb 17 '25

The former owner of whatsapp has criticized meta over privacy concerns. Originally he was promised things that meta later reneged on

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u/fubo Feb 17 '25

Signal is run by a nonprofit foundation, created by privacy activists with a strong security background.

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u/quelar Feb 17 '25

It's whatsapp but without that robot boy secretly reading your messages.

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u/americanadiandrew Feb 17 '25

But not owned by facebook.

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u/GoofyGills Feb 17 '25

Cross-platform (Android, iOS, Windows, MacOS, Linux) encrypted messaging app.

You should begin using it. Introduce a few friends as well and go from there. Took me about a year but now basically every contact I regularly talk to is using it. You may be surprised to find some of your contacts already there.

https://signal.org/install

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u/BTLOTM Feb 17 '25

I just downloaded it for no reason other than President Musk doesn't want us to

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u/kamikaze_pedestrian Feb 17 '25

I just started using it and like it so far

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u/DeliciousMight9181 Feb 17 '25

That’s ok. I blocked X from my life.

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u/xtremelampshade Feb 17 '25

I never really used that shit, it boggles my mind how so many people are addicted to it, especially Ketamine McBitchtits

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u/lordunholy Feb 17 '25

My few tweets are from early early giveaways for PC hardware or beta tests. Totally useless to me otherwise.

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u/NK1337 Feb 17 '25

Seriously. Any time I see an article that mentions X I can’t help but I get all scream “STOP USING THAT SHIT APP!”

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u/Big_Process9521 Feb 17 '25

Everybody close your accounts and move to Bluesky or Mastodon already.

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u/ranchwriter Feb 17 '25

Just signed up for both. No idea who to follow on mastodon I much prefer the subreddit format over the follow this person to see everything they post format. 

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u/Dismal-Detective-737 Feb 17 '25

Reddit is a different style website. It more closely mimics the old days of forums.

Twitter/Bluesky/Mastodon are 'micro blogs' where you can reply to people but it's not designed for long form serious discussion.

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u/RedditIsShittay Feb 17 '25

Old forums didn't have an upvote system to hide posts. They had actual moderators who kept politics and religion out of most topics.

Exactly why I still use old forums and don't talk about them on Reddit. Redditors will ruin it, look at arstech forums now it's the same as Reddit with the same comments posted here.

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u/Dismal-Detective-737 Feb 17 '25

No two systems are the same.

Reddit is threaded. Most forum software is not. I'm sure there's a plugin now for you to upvote posts. You still had the post report button which went straight to the mods. No different than how Reddit works.

A closer analogy, to be pedantic, is that Reddit is a dumbed down Slashdot. Which had both taxonomical post voting (not just up/down) and threaded conversation. It just added the subreddit concept.

Without voting, and complete anarchy, you had Usenet. So you had the 'subreddit' concept with each news group. Discussion was threaded. (Unlike forums, which were linear).

But all of the above systems. Usenet, Slashdot, Forums, Reddit are completely different than what Twitter introduced to the world.

I have no problem sharing my forums on Reddit. I don't see what they're able to do. Especially with the taxonomy set up in the sub-forums and how most are moderated: https://www.vwvortex.com/forums/

Spam the 5x112 Classifieds with politics? It'll last an hour at most before a ban hammer.

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u/Spaduf Feb 17 '25

You just have you hit the people section of the "For You" page for a while. It's based on the people you already follow so just keep that in mind.

7

u/pohui Feb 17 '25

Here is a short guide on finding interesting people on Mastodon. If you follow people on Twitter, a lot of them will have links to their Mastodon or Bluesky.

If you prefer a reddit format, there's Lemmy. I've found the communities there pretty small and the creators are tankies, but the point of the fediverse is that you can choose a server that suits your needs. You can even follow Lemmy users and "subreddits" from Mastodon to some extent, they're built on the same protocol.

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u/Big_Process9521 Feb 17 '25

Same. Reddit's design encourages real conversations.

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u/miramboseko Feb 17 '25

Why tf are you on X in the first place

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u/Knut79 Feb 17 '25

Or just don't be part of any microblognsite. It doesn't bring anything positive anyway.

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u/RandomJPG6 Feb 17 '25

Just waiting for one of them instagram replacements to take off

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u/spdorsey Feb 17 '25

I let the twitter train sail right past me so many years ago and I do not regret it one tiny bit.

17

u/ranchwriter Feb 17 '25

When trump first became president I finally installed it to see all the dumb shit he had to say. Uninstalled 24 hours later. Never gave a fuck about Twitter. 

21

u/BernyMoon Feb 17 '25

I left twitter a week ago and I don’t miss it.

40

u/er1catwork Feb 17 '25

I gave up on Twitter years ago. Used to for local notifications - school, City, etc. abandoned it Before the change to X. I refuse To call it X. It’s Twitter.

Going to check out BlueSky…

96

u/oldcreaker Feb 17 '25

Why are people using X? It's like millions of people who complain the National Enquirer is an awful piece of trash - but continue to buy and read it every single day. Just stop.

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u/indiemike Feb 17 '25

I’m now adding Signal due to this news

12

u/Minute-Object Feb 18 '25

Bluesky has almost 32 million users now, and you can subscribe to blocklists if you would rather have a peaceful experience without being trolled by certain groups.

Why bother with Twitter?

11

u/PanicOffice Feb 17 '25

Signal is the shit

9

u/WordleFan88 Feb 17 '25

What is Signal? If X doesn't like it, then I probably will.

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u/Antiliani Feb 17 '25

You guys still use X?

33

u/asian_chihuahua Feb 17 '25

What is X?

You mean Twitter?

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u/DonutsMcKenzie Feb 17 '25

Free and open source software, including encrypted communication (like Signal) and federated social media software (like Lemmy and Mastodon) are a threat to tech oligarchs like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.

You might not value them yet, but the very reason they fear them is the exact reason we should care about them.

7

u/taskmaster51 Feb 17 '25

What is Signal?

13

u/GoofyGills Feb 17 '25

7

u/taskmaster51 Feb 17 '25

Tuens out I already had it on my phone and never used it. Talked my wife into using it now. She thinks it's cool to be "covert"

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u/Luvs_to_drink Feb 17 '25

The biggest issue with signal is that not enough people use it. I always suggest it but no one else has it.

6

u/fistswityat0es Feb 17 '25

stop using X

6

u/justV_2077 Feb 17 '25

"free speech"

4

u/Gilldadab Feb 17 '25

Good reminder to finally delete my long unused X account.

5

u/Actual-Bee-402 Feb 17 '25

Free speech absolutist Elon Musk everybody

5

u/Berkyjay Feb 17 '25

So? Why are you still on NaziNet?

5

u/Round_Mastodon8660 Feb 17 '25

The planet should block X and Facebook. Make it US only crap, it has no added value to anyone.

5

u/Sturdily5092 Feb 18 '25

It's time to start blocking X everywhere including the DNS

6

u/notPabst404 Feb 18 '25

Bluesky is a much better alternative to Twitter that isn't owned by a Nazi.

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u/Fromartie Feb 17 '25

Musk tweet of "Use signal" did not age well

9

u/PhilosopherDon0001 Feb 17 '25

Fine.
I'll just start my own media platform...

With blackjack and hookers.

4

u/SeniorScienceOfficer Feb 17 '25

Better yet, forget the media platform!

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u/Bleezy79 Feb 17 '25

Who is still using X?!? Stop it?

13

u/dandeagle Feb 17 '25

You can't just make me stop using a key on my keyboard.

ohhhh you mean Twitter..

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u/Prudent_Beach_473 Feb 17 '25

X needs to die fast. This isn’t even a political statement, the whole platform has reached peak brain rot and Elon Musk is weaponising to it’s whims.

3

u/Oldfolksboogie Feb 17 '25

This is like an advertisement for Signal🤣

4

u/WoodpeckerEastern384 Feb 17 '25

Dumb question - forgive me - but how/why/when would you link Signal and Twitter? Does this mean I couldn’t send a tweet from Twitter to a contact in Signal? Or….

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u/SurfinInFL Feb 17 '25

If you are on X, why?

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u/niuzeta Feb 17 '25

It wouldn’t be the first time that X has attempted to stifle third-party services being promoted on the platform. [...]

These situations differ, however, as Signal isn’t a direct competitor to X. We have asked X if Signal links are being intentionally blocked and will update this story if we hear back. Signal user handles can still be published on X at the time of writing, which can be copied and pasted into the Signal app as a workaround.

I'm pretty behind the Musk news, but what's his beef with Signal? Seems too random, even for his standards.

3

u/GlowstickConsumption Feb 17 '25

Mr Free Speech hates free market places.

5

u/my-cup-noodle Feb 17 '25

Betting he's not blocking Telegram though. Putin, pedos and scammers wouldn't like that if he did.

4

u/CanvasFanatic Feb 17 '25

FrEeDoM oF sPeEcH

4

u/bballkj7 Feb 18 '25

Alright, just downloaded signal! nice!

5

u/Danni_Les Feb 18 '25

Signal works so well. I love it.

7

u/Just2LetYouKnow Feb 17 '25

Stop using Twitter, it's a dead platform.

9

u/whitechocobear Feb 17 '25 edited Feb 17 '25

It funny how elon promote signal before and now when he own this bushfire platform he’s blocking signal links and he forgot that journalists uses signal sometimes to fact check stories before they publish anything

3

u/ravnhjarta Feb 17 '25

More aitwa ought to block X tbh

3

u/_SeKeLuS_ Feb 17 '25

Lol, i had to google what signal is :)

3

u/xzxfdasjhfhbkasufah Feb 17 '25

You should use DuckDuckGo

3

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '25

All of Signal's code is public on GitHub:

Android - https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android

iOS - https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS

Desktop - https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop

Server - https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server

Everything on Signal is end-to-end encrypted by default.

Signal cannot provide any usable data to law enforcement when under subpoena:

https://signal.org/bigbrother/

You can hide your phone number and create a username on Signal:

https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/6829998083994-Phone-Number-Privacy-and-Usernames-Deeper-Dive

Signal has built in protection when you receive messages from unknown numbers. You can block or delete the message without the sender ever knowing the message went through. Google Messages, WhatsApp, and iMessage have no such protection:

https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007459591-Signal-Profiles-and-Message-Requests

Signal has been extensively audited for years, unlike Telegram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger:

https://community.signalusers.org/t/overview-of-third-party-security-audits/13243

Signal is a 501(c)3 charity with a Form-990 IRS document disclosed every year:

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/824506840

With Signal, your security and privacy are guaranteed by open-source, audited code, and universally praised encryption:

https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/sections/360001602792-Signal-Messenger-Features

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u/mexsystem28 Feb 17 '25

Great advertisement because I have never heard of this till now and if X is against it, it must be good

3

u/TheDudeAbidesFarOut Feb 17 '25

Nothing says "I can't handle new tech or platforms" than staying on Twitter or Facebook.......

3

u/darkknight302 Feb 17 '25

But but but X is supposed to be about FREE SPEECH???? Yeah we all knew that was a lie.

3

u/3RR0RFi3ND Feb 17 '25

It will be a difficult shift for people whose small businesses rely on the traffic Twitter gets.

Encourage them to advertise on other sites. Creators need to hear their audience say that.

3

u/wanderingartist Feb 17 '25

Block Twitter people!!

3

u/Snakebyte130 Feb 18 '25

X is not a privacy type of company. If you use anything to get around privacy, they will block it.

3

u/spsanderson Feb 18 '25

Is anyone using X it’s a toxic garbage heap

3

u/Capt1an_Cl0ck Feb 18 '25

Everyone just needs to leave X. Go elsewhere. It’s a dumpster fire and it’s generating income for a nazi.

3

u/nemojakonemoras Feb 18 '25

If you’re using X, you probably need a head examination anyway.

3

u/renoahk Feb 18 '25

When will Reddit block X links. When will everyone start to block X links?

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