Embedded Tweet widgets being blocked

[eugf]

This domain on your blacklist cdn.syndication.twimg.com seems to target the widgets used on sites to embed Tweets.

For reference, this is the site I noticed it on
http:https://www.iflscience.com/environment/truck-driver-ignored-signs-and-drove-across-perus-2000yearold-nasca-lines/

And I narrowed it down with the help of this forum
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1189443?page=2
Specifically, this section
" This address should pop up a download dialog (no need to download):
https://cdn.syndication.twimg.com/tweets.json?callback=__twttr.callbacks.cb0&ids=950804340675088384&lang=en&suppress_response_codes=true&tz=GMT-0800 "

CDN is a Content Delivery Network, and as far as I can tell it seems to load images. Another domain I saw used it for shopping and keeping the pictures on their server rather than the store's own website. Here is the Wiki for reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_delivery_network

Is there a history of abusing the Twitter CDN for ads? If not would it be possible to remove this from your blacklist?

[anudeepND]

@eugf Thanks for reporting :)
Removed both syndication.twitter.com and cdn.syndication.twimg.com

[eugf]

Thanks anudeepND!

In my testing of explicitly whitelisting cdn.syndication.twimg.com and blacklisting syndication.twitter.com I got the Twitter widget to display, but not the other way around. (Still works with both whitelisted, presumably because cdn.syndication.twimg.com is the one that the Twitter widget needs)

Do you know what syndication.twitter.com does? A quick Google around shows that it may be a redirect for some kind of malware:
https://community.webroot.com/t5/Webroot-SecureAnywhere-Internet/What-the-heck-is-https-syndication-twitter-com-i-jot-syndication/td-p/146267
https://forums.malwarebytes.com/topic/198133-syndicationtwittercomijot-help/
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/WFBt-OInEoM;context-place=forum/chrome
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6526142

[anudeepND]

I think it's kind of tracking domain, but it's not present in any other blacklist. I will add it again.

[eugf]

With your hint, I found these after filtering out all the malware results
https://blog.twitter.com/marketing/en_us/a/2015/promote-content-on-and-off-twitter-now-syndicating-promoted-tweets.html
https://blogs.wsj.com/cmo/2015/02/12/marketing-world-says-meh-to-twitters-ad-syndication-initiative/

Seems to be a paid ad service, which sounds like a Promoted ad on Google, except that it shows up off the Twitter platform in aggregated Twitter feeds. I would imagine something like a news site that shows the latest tweets.

Thanks for adding it back on! I think the community will benefit from this being on your blacklist.