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EFF is leaving X

eff.org

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Re: EFF is leaving X

#441

Post by lynndotpy »

mellosouls wrote: post #19

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.

Yes, EFF is a civil liberties group and always has been, which makes it a purely ideological movement.

Let's be honest and look at the engagement numbers of the post announcing this:

X post: 124 comments, 79 reblogs, and 337 likes

BlueSky post: 245 comments, 1400 reblogs, and 6.2K likes

Mastodon post: 403 reposts, 458 likes

These numbers, combined with the facts that Mastodon and BlueSky are aligned with internet freedoms while X is strongly aligned against internet freedoms, make for a clear-and-cut case that it's past time to leave the platform.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#442

Post by caconym_ »

bluebarbet wrote: post #257
davidw wrote: 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.

Personally I left Twitter less because Musk owns it now, and more because Musk's changes turned my previously tolerable feed into a deluge of far right drivel. Expecting me to keep using it is like expecting me to keep shopping at a grocery store that replaced its bread aisle with a swastika-festooned exhibit glorifying the conquests and exploits of Hitler and his Nazis---even if I am generally apolitical, I will have to start shopping somewhere that sells bread.

Notwithstanding the above, given how powerful network effects are in social media, I think boycotting platforms operated by people like Musk (I struggle to find the words to fully encompass how repulsive he has become) is arguably one of the more effective forms of protest available to people, and I encourage them to exercise it.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#443

Post by [deleted] »

ceejayoz wrote: post #45
txrx0000 wrote: post #31

[flagged]

> Elon despite his flaws opposes mass surveillance and censorship… Sure, just like he was pro-free speech, until he suddenly wasn't. His broken promise not to ban @elonjet is still up. https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1589414958508691456

[deleted]

Re: EFF is leaving X

#444

Post by lasky »

davidw wrote: 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…

[flagged]

Re: EFF is leaving X

#445

Post by FireInsight »

pmdr wrote: post #234

> We'll Keep Fighting. Just Not on X Yeah, somewhere where regular people that aren't terminally online won't ever have the chance to see it. This is a dumb decision. I'd very much like for open, distributed social networks to win, but that's not a reality we'll be living in anytime soon. X, for better or worse, gets you eyes, more so than any other alternative social media.

> Yeah, somewhere where regular people that aren't terminally online won't ever have the chance to see it.

Honestly the first time I read this I thought you meant to say "will have the chance", because I don't know of any normal people that used Xitter in years. Most are now just on Instagram. Then again, my generation and geographical locatin might have something to do with that.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#446

Post by EngineerUSA »

davidw wrote: 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…

[flagged]

Re: EFF is leaving X

#448

Post by TZubiri »

Very nice, Twitter/X feels like one of those things we keep doing out of inertia, like using Axios to download in javascript.

We used to use it back then because it was a pretty open system, you could famously do analysis on Hashtags, it was even a fad in the scientific community to do sentiment analysis on some topics, twitter was like the Drosophila Melanogaster. The tech stack was very public as well and it had that startup vibe to it. Even presidents were registering on the platform due to its neutrality, which made sense back then.

Nowadays the company was acquired, and acquired not by a nameless penny pinching fund, but by a personalist company who might have bought it for personal, not economic reasons. They were involved in the executive power and did a similar kind of personnel cut and regime change. The presidents now use it, but now people use Twitter because presidents are on it, rather than the other way around.

It still has some professionals in it, and it's relaxed and addictive nature allows me to interact with professionals I wouldn't have a chance to on uptight Linkedin. But meh, it's not like sharing a shitpost with a CEO of a cool startup is going to be my ticket to stardom anyway, if anything it's a bad signal "Hey, remember me? I responded to your tweet about AI with a cool factoid while you wiped your ass on the toilet!" who gives a shit.

Hopefully I too will leave twitter some day, some day.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#449

Post by Ajedi32 »

ethanrutherford wrote: post #300
the_real_cher wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They're a global issues advocacy organization. "Their target audience" is everyone, or at least it ought to be if they're doing their job right.

Ignoring people of any demographic or political persuasion would be a serious strategic mistake in my opinion.

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