Live data from Hacker News

EFF is leaving X

eff.org

291–300 of 1001 posts

Re: EFF is leaving X

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Of course they're ideological. That's the whole point of their existence. Anyway, > Twitter was never a utopia. We've criticized the platform for about as long as it’s been around. Still, Twitter did deserve recognition from time to time for vociferously fighting for its users’ rights. That changed. Musk fired the entire human rights team and laid off staffers in countries…

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: EFF is leaving X

#292
post #118

My grandparents were pretty WASPy, conservative people who lived in northern Idaho. And they hated the white supremacist/neonazi groups up there with a burning passion. They were of an age to remember people going off to fight in Germany and Asia against that kind of ideology. They would have been absolutely appalled and ashamed to see a business leader throwing those salutes and backing it up with talk of a "white h…

But since when did using a business's product come to require sharing (or not sharing) political views with the business's owner? Seems to me that this is what has changed. PS. It's amazing to me, and worrying, the anger and vituperation this position is provoking. It was once almost consensus. To take the obvious parallel, buying a newspaper did not imply agreement with the reactionary press baron who owned it.

There are plenty of business' products that I use where I'm unaware of if I share or don't share the owner's political views and I'm totally fine using them. Elon Musk has made it impossible to not be aware of his political views by constantly shoving it down our throats.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#293

That statement pretty clearly shows that they have certain ideological concerns that they value more highly than the kind of stuff we tend to think the EFF primarily cares about (digital privacy, open source, patent trolling, etc). Through that lens, I guess it makes sense that they see TikTok, Instagram, and BlueSky as worth their time and presence but not X.

The EFF is and has always been a political activist organization. Of course they care about ideological concerns.

He's saying that they have ideological concerns beyond the ideological concerns you would tend to associate with the EFF (digital privacy, open source, patent trolling, etc). I for one am sad to see that this is the case. There are fewer and fewer organizations protecting civil rights without being dragged into left/right tribalism.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#294

If they justify it in terms of reach and impressions then say they will still be on BlueSky and Mastodon then you know it's purely ideological. Which is fine but just be honest about it.

Just looking over recent posts, the EFF gets more interaction on BlueSky than it does on X despite 1/3 the followers and being on a much smaller site. I think that says it all.

Plus, even if it did get less engagement, I imagine that BlueSky is full of the sorts of people who donate to EFF.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#295
post #118

My grandparents were pretty WASPy, conservative people who lived in northern Idaho. And they hated the white supremacist/neonazi groups up there with a burning passion. They were of an age to remember people going off to fight in Germany and Asia against that kind of ideology. They would have been absolutely appalled and ashamed to see a business leader throwing those salutes and backing it up with talk of a "white h…

But since when did using a business's product come to require sharing (or not sharing) political views with the business's owner? Seems to me that this is what has changed. PS. It's amazing to me, and worrying, the anger and vituperation this position is provoking. It was once almost consensus. To take the obvious parallel, buying a newspaper did not imply agreement with the reactionary press baron who owned it.

Musk’s account is the most engaged and followed account on Twitter. So Twitter is de facto his global soapbox.

(And most of the other top-engaged accounts are MAGA accounts: https://www.natesilver.net/p/social-media-has-become-a-freak...)

Re: EFF is leaving X

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Anyone who doesn't think what Musk did was a Nazi salute, I encourage you to watch the video over and over, enough times so that you can memorize and replicate it, then go into work and do it in front of your manager, and see what happens. Of course, as expected, the Elon Musk Defense League showed up right on time. Does he give out $100 for every post defending his honor online?

100% agree, for anyone that hasn't seen the clip, saved you some time googling:

https://www.foxnews.com/media/elon-musk-cory-booker-made-sim...

Re: EFF is leaving X

#297
post #118

My grandparents were pretty WASPy, conservative people who lived in northern Idaho. And they hated the white supremacist/neonazi groups up there with a burning passion. They were of an age to remember people going off to fight in Germany and Asia against that kind of ideology. They would have been absolutely appalled and ashamed to see a business leader throwing those salutes and backing it up with talk of a "white h…

But since when did using a business's product come to require sharing (or not sharing) political views with the business's owner? Seems to me that this is what has changed. PS. It's amazing to me, and worrying, the anger and vituperation this position is provoking. It was once almost consensus. To take the obvious parallel, buying a newspaper did not imply agreement with the reactionary press baron who owned it.

It is the way they express those views.

I mean, there are a lot of conservatives I respect including Mitt Romney, Robert Nisbett, George Will, and Thomas Sowell. Then there are the jerks like William F. Buckley and David Horowitz. [1]

Then there is Musk who's below even them -- but I am not particularly offended by Hobby Lobby or Chicken-Fil-A.

[1] if you want to know the criteria I use take a look at this book https://www.amazon.com/Watch-Right-Conservative-Intellectual...

Re: EFF is leaving X

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was recently at a brown bag at work - regarding enablement of AI in the workplace (it was awesome - all over the roadmap) - and one of the audience asked the speakers (a very diverse group of people) how on earth they keep up with all the developments in AI? All six of the speakers immediately said Twitter was realistically the only place you can keep up with the conversation. Having an extensively curated list mea…

bsky is meant to hold the promise of control your algorithm, I don't see why that can't be the model going forward

The problem is largely one of community. The folks talking about AI are still primarily on X and haven't moved over.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#299

That statement pretty clearly shows that they have certain ideological concerns that they value more highly than the kind of stuff we tend to think the EFF primarily cares about (digital privacy, open source, patent trolling, etc). Through that lens, I guess it makes sense that they see TikTok, Instagram, and BlueSky as worth their time and presence but not X.

[flagged]

So just talk to the people who you think already agree with you?

Re: EFF is leaving X

#300
post #71

Their logic for why they're on TikTok and Facebook seems sound to me, but doesn't that same logic apply to X? I kept waiting for the explanation but it never came...

I had that exact same thought. The argument they presented applies to any walled garden, they gave no reason why X would be the exception. It's clear this is about politics, and I'm not opposed to that, Elon is not awesome, but trying to justify it otherwise seems kind of shady.

It's pretty damn simple actually. Their target audience by and large doesn't use twitter anymore, either.
Post reply on HN