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[return to "Tell HN: t.co is adding a five-second delay to some domains"]
1. kens+71[view] [source] 2023-08-15 04:20:25
>>xslowz+(OP)
I can confirm. NYT shows a five-second redirect delay: "wget https://t.co/4fs609qwWt". It redirects to gov.uk immediately: "wget https://t.co/iigzas6QBx"
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2. craftk+e3[view] [source] 2023-08-15 04:37:03
>>kens+71
Oddly enough the delay is reduced to 1 second by using curl's useragent string (wget --user-agent='curl/8.2.1' https://t.co/4fs609qwWt)
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3. ilikeh+P5[view] [source] 2023-08-15 05:09:16
>>craftk+e3
Seeing this makes me wonder if it's some sort of server-side header bidding ad server gone haywire, rather than something nefarious. Why would they only delay browser agents otherwise?
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4. nvm0n2+bq[view] [source] 2023-08-15 08:59:49
>>ilikeh+P5
Probably a phishing/malware scan gone wrong then. NYTimes has Twitterbot in its robots.txt which might be related?

Even if it's deliberate, I don't see how people can complain. Google has outright blocked Breitbart for years. They prevent results from that domain from appearing at all unless you specifically force it with site: and apparently HN does the same. Politically motivated censorship and restricting "reach" is just how Silicon Valley rolls. Pre-Musk Twitter did freeze the New York Post's account and many other much worse things. It'd be a shame for Musk to be doing this deliberately, even though it seems unlikely. But that's the problem with creating a culture where that sort of behavior is tolerated, isn't it? One day it might be turned around on you.

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