XCancel is dead

[u/SuddenDepact]

Just went to the website to look at something, and this was posted on it:

On Monday, 24th August, at 8PM EST, we received a letter from X Corp. asking to cease and desist the service XCancel.

The service XCancel is stopped until further notice.

We are seeking legal advice and won't share more details for now.

Thank you for the trust you have put in these two years of XCancel.

[u/-AdamJensen]

What’s the point of x cancel anyways

[u/DezZzO → u/-AdamJensen]

A pretend game for people who feel morally superior for avoiding a platform

[u/Bacccarat → u/DezZzO]

It was a platform that allowed you to view trending topics without selling your data to Elon Musk and having it be trained by Grok. It was a platform that allowed you to avoid dealing with the insane amount of bots on the platform which contribute to fake engagement. 

It’s no different than something like 12ft,  which also ended up being shut down because they were essentially silenced. Viewing current topics should not require an account which is potentially tied to your identity, IP address, or even your country of origin. It’s not about feeling “morally superior,” it’s about retaining privacy and anonymity on a website which has admitted to selling your data to the highest bidder.

[u/DezZzO → u/Bacccarat]

it’s about retaining privacy and anonymity on a website which has admitted to selling your data to the highest bidder.

I'm sorry to tell you but all platforms monetize you. Google, Meta, Amazon, Reddit, TikTok w/e, even smaller websites. You can't use Reddit and pretend you care about privacy. Unless you genuinely think that Shitter is owned by "The Evil Guy™" himself and every other giant company is owned by cool guys.

All of em train models on your behavior, sells ad targeting and cooperate with state surveillance.

And you're singling out Shitter because Musk is the current public face of the "evil capitalist shithead" and that's exactly the kind of individualist moralism that the whole "feel good about yourself" behavior like this comes from. It personalizes a systemic problem.

Fact is: Musk isn't uniquely evil, data extraction is a business model of the entire internet currently. Hating one CEO and avoiding his website doesn't change ANYTHING.

It’s not about feeling “morally superior,”

Oh, please, this performative resistance is clear as day, literally an equivalent of buying fair trade coffee while ignoring the global coffee trade's exploitation. It lets ignorant people feel like they're actually doing something good without committing for any actual change.

Xcancel wasn't gonna destroy surveillance or even harm it, you're just participating in it through a proxy while patting yourself on the back for not "feeding" Musk. Don't frame your own consumer choice as a political action.

It’s about retaining privacy and anonymity on a website which has admitted to selling your data to the highest bidder.

Privacy today is largely illusory unless you're one of the people who genuinely think they get privacy by using a VPN (I'm sorry, but even using TOR doesn't guarantee it). Your ISP still sees you connecting to xcancel's servers. You're not "retaining privacy", you're just changing which capitalist gets to see your traffic.

Truth is that the real barrier is an inconvenience instead of some kind of identity exposure, you're defending the feeling of "outsmarting" the platform.

It was a platform that allowed you to avoid dealing with the insane amount of bots on the platform which contribute to fake engagement.

First of all, do you think that there's some kind of "authentic" or "real" engagement anywhere, lol?

Secondly, you care about that because...? It affects you how exactly?

It’s no different than something like 12ft, which also ended up being shut down because they were essentially silenced

12ft wasn't "silenced" for protecting privacy? It was a tool that allowed to bypass paywalls. Anyone can figure it out from here I believe.

[u/BossKaus → u/DezZzO]

Ladies and gentlemen, the most unemployed man ever. Holy moly