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369 points zeech | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.896s | source
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mindcrash ◴[] No.43804805[source]
Way back then I exposed massive data collection from Twitter by Google which made it possible to plot locations at which you used Twitter in Google Maps by simply putting your Twitter handle into the search field. Somehow they knew about these locations even when you opted out of sharing location data with Twitter (I checked) -- so this was only possible by Twitter privately providing this information to Google.

This "experiment" has since then been shut down, but exposing this and many other other forms of activism permanently has cost me my Twitter account, to the point that asking to reinstate it several times because I was permanently suspended for no valid reason led to X Support directly rerouting every attempt to appeal this decision into the digital trash can.

Let's say nothing surprises me anymore.

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1. patrakov ◴[] No.43809182[source]
Is this your experiment? https://github.com/jkakavas/creepy https://www.geocreepy.com/
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2. mindcrash ◴[] No.43810500[source]
Mine was even creepier.

This one used data shared by the user (opt-in on sharing geolocation in the app or browser), which then is publically exposed through the API (like this feature says it would).

Mine doesn't give a shit, geolocation was shared even when turned off by the user in Twitter.

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3. patrakov ◴[] No.43810584[source]
Sorry for misrepresenting the functionality of the original cree.py project.

What it does is download all photos that the user shared on Twitter, extract GPS tags from EXIF, and put markers on Google maps, annotated with these photos.