96 lines
4 KiB
Markdown
96 lines
4 KiB
Markdown
# TwitToMast
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Bypass paywalled APIs to crosspost from Twitter to Mastodon
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## Installation:
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1. Clone the repo and set up the script's dependencies
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```
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git clone https://github.com/pogmom/TwitToMast.git
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cd TwitToMast
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npm install
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```
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2. Install [Chrome Webdriver](https://chromedriver.chromium.org/downloads) and set up your PATH as outlined in Step 3 [here](https://www.selenium.dev/documentation/webdriver/getting_started/install_drivers/)
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3. Retrieve your Mastodon API Key
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- From your Mastodon Account, go to Preferences > Development > New Application
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- Enter any name you'd like, press "submit"
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- You should see the application with the name you just gave it in your applications list
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- Click on its name, and copy the string of text to the right of where it says "Your Access Token"
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4. Update config.txt with your Mastodon account settings
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- Replace "API_KEY" on line 1 with the Access Token you retrieved in the previous step
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- Replace "API_URL" on line 2 with your Mastodon instance's API URL
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- This will look like "https://mastodon.social/api/v1/", replacing "mastodon.social" with the domain you registered your account through
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## Usage
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```
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node ./TwitToMast.js [-htqrpmbc] [-u username] [-n tweetcount] [-d debuglevel] [-w timeout]
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node ./multi.js [-htqrpmbc] [-n tweetcount] [-d debuglevel] [-w timeout]
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```
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## Arguments
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```
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-h: - show help screen (you made it here!)
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-u: username
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- the twitter handle of the user whose account will be scraped
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- defaults to 'Twitter' (@twitter)
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-n: tweetcount
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- the number of enabled tweets that will be scraped from the targeted account
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- defaults to 5
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-t: - tweets that are part of threads will be included in the scan
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-q: - quote tweets will be included in the scan
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-r: - Link to quoted tweet will appear in the header, preceded by "re: "
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- default behavior posts link at bottom preceded by "Quoting "
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-p: - enable/disable posting to Mastodon
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-m: - include user's name, handle, and link to tweet
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-b: - display browser (disable headless mode)
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-c: - force URL to be logged to file if posts are disabled
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-d: debuglevel
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- amount of information to print to console
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0: only errors
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1: current task + tweet Text (default)
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2: pretty much everything
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-w: timeout
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- length of time (in ms) to wait for page elements to load
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- defaults to 30000 (30 seconds)
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```
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[Example of single-user scraper](https://tech.lgbt/@pogmommy)
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[Example of multi-user scraper](https://techhub.social/@twitterscraper)
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## How types of content are handled
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- Text
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- All text (except emojis) is currently included in cross-posts
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- Quote Tweets
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- Preserves text of quote tweet and allows
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- Media
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- All still images attached to a tweet will be included in cross-posts
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- Videos are unable to be attached to cross-posts, but a link to the original video will be included
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- Retweets
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- Retweets are not cross-posted
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- Replies
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- To self:
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- Preserves Text, links, still images, quoted content, and continuity (mastodon post are stitched together in threads)
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- To others:
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- Replies to others are not cross-posted at the moment
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## Q&A
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**Q.** why isn't it staying open in the background to monitor my tweets?
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**A.** TwitToMast doesn't run perpetually by default. You'll need to set it up yourself to run on a schedule.
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- On macos, you can run the script every 10 minutes with the following command in an automator app set up to run at login.
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- `zsh -c "cd /path/to/repository/TwitToMast && exec screen -DmS twittercrosspost zsh -c 'while true; do /path/to/node ./TwitToMast.js [username] [tweet count] [debug level] & sleep 600; done'"`
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- You can connect to the created screen to monitor the output of the script with `screen -ls` and `screen -r [screenid]`
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- Windows users, try [this](https://joshuatz.com/posts/2020/using-windows-task-scheduler-to-automate-nodejs-scripts/)
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- If you're on linux, you probably already know what you're doing
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**Q.** Doesn't bypassing Twitter's API violate their TOS?
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**A.** No, elon musk personally gave me the go-ahead to do this.
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