So as the title says, are there any potential legal issues you can get snagged in for using redact.dev’s software on twitter? Could twitter ban you for using Redact?
No, even if Elon wanted to pursue you or ban you, the US Government says he’s not allowed to interfere with how you choose to manage your content on their site, even if it’s an automated app.
Read This: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R46751
That law protects Redact (and you) from any harm. Twitter/X/Elon are not allowed to prevent you from using Redact.
Even the richest man in the world can’t stop us.
Redact is legally protected content management. None of these sites can tell you how you’re able to manage your content.
thanks fgor the replies!
Technically speaking you are only deleting your own stuff while logged into your own account. Same as clicking delete, just repeated faster using redact’s app. The only real risk is that doing a ton of identical actions in a short window can look sort of botty, so X will rate limit you, throw captchas, ask for phone verification, or temporarily lock actions. if you are trying to wipe years of content, pulling from your archive usually helps a lot, because relying on what X shows you via normal scrolling/search can miss older posts.
Info on the legality of Redact can be found here: Redact Enterprise - Legal
This is similar to the thread asking about if Discord will let you use redact or try to ban you for using it. I believe the same legal protections apply for X the same way they do for Discord
it’s not against X terms of service
I’ve been using it a lot on X and never had any sort of issue
Reading back through this thread, I’m a little wary of how confidently we’re stating that platforms “can’t” ban users for using Redact. The CRS link Gerald posted is a research report, not legislation. CRS reports describe law that exists, they don’t grant rights themselves. As far as I know, platform TOS enforcement is a contract matter and platforms can suspend accounts for almost any reason they want, including automation, even if the user is only deleting their own content.
The practical reality might still be that nobody gets banned for using Redact which seems to be most peoples experience here. But “we’re legally protected” and “in practice nobody enforces this” are very different claims. Worth not conflating them imo.
Not trying to be a downer about the tool but I I use it. Just think we should be accurate about why it works.