EFF is leaving X • Hacker News Board

Re: EFF is leaving X

#781

Post by Iridiumkoivu » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 1:08 AM UTC

Hmmm... They talk about inability to reach out to people at Twitter... but isn't this more about market correction? I often thought that EFF on Twitter was artificially boosted because they were often visible in contexts that really had nothing to do with their core mission. Current Twitter management did state afaik and understand to stop this kind of thing from happening.

So of course it probably feels bad from EFF's perspective that they are no longer receiving the "50 to 100 million impressions a month" and instead get more realistic "2 million views" per post. Which I'd assume is probably better reflection of the natural size of their audience.

Even if this comparison is wrong... Another way to think about this is The GNU/Linux desktop marketshare. For a long-time it was some fraction of a 1% of users. Those users cared about their digital rights (among other things) more than the inconveniences it caused them. And that group is a really small faction of the whole desktop market.

I'm not saying EFF's message isn't important. But I doubt that it ever was interesting enough to naturally receive "50 to 100 million impressions a month" even back in 2018.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#782

Post by spopejoy » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 1:11 AM UTC

helaoban wrote: post #259

>Our presence on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok is not an endorsement [...] We stay because the people on those platforms deserve access to information, too. We stay because some of our most-read posts are the ones criticizing the very platform we're posting on. We stay because the fewer steps between you and the resources you need to protect yourself, the better. Does this not apply to X users?

The story behind the numbers they present clearly demonstrates that X is censoring/shadowbanning them. Going from 600MM to 13MM impressions/yr -- losing 98% of their impressions! -- is no accident but clearly Musk's thumb on the scale.

Imagine what this means if you are trying to gauge impact of a post. Remember, X is giving them zero information about who they're preventing from seeing it. Impressions is the main datapoint so if you can't figure out why you've lost 98% of your impact, how on earth are you going to evaluate it vs other platforms?

And yes, each platform has a cost. There's a LOT more to social strategy than just "copy and paste this announce to every platform".

Re: EFF is leaving X

#783

Post by cbsmith » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 1:13 AM UTC

jl6 wrote: post #730

cbsmith wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to read their post before commenting. They seem very much aware of the need to reach people who aren't supporters and have always actively engaged with the platforms they are critical of. It's just that X isn't really an effective use of their time anymore.

I read the post. > Last year, our 1,500 posts earned roughly 13 million impressions for the entire year. Their YouTube channel reports 2,759,491 views in total, since 2006. So while X may be a fraction of what it was, it's still a significant multiple of at least one of the other channels they are happy to use. What kind of activist org turns down the opportunity to reach 13 million people for essentially zero cost?…

If you think it is "essentially zero cost", I'm going to respectfully suggest you do not understand what you read. If you think they reached 13 million people on X last year, you do not understand social media.

They have made 399 posts to YouTube over the life of their YouTube channel, so that's an average of 20 posts a year.

I'm sorry, but you're projecting a subtext.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#784

Post by oceanplexian » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 1:16 AM UTC

theahura wrote: post #365

ghshephard wrote: post #201

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…

The big issue with this approach is that it will destroy your sanity for things that are often a big bag of hype with nothing underneath. I often find HN to be better because things that get on the front page are vetted beyond 'someone on twitter hyped up a thing'

HN is still great but it’s in decline, I still hear about AI developments on r/LocalLlama and X sometimes weeks before they make it here if even at all.

And all the commentary here is negative, skeptical and mean. It’s like Slashdot when Apple started ascending and everyone was complaining that iPods will never catch on.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#785

Post by oceanplexian » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 1:19 AM UTC

poisonarena wrote: post #707

satvikpendem wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of good discussion there still if you follow the right people and block certain categories of discussion. If you use lists then you'll see no suggested content beyond who you follow. I'm more astounded that people think every single part of it is a cesspool when in reality there are gems to be found that aren't in any other X alternative like Bluesky or Mastodon or (lol) Threads.

OSINT, retrogaming, fantasy art, simpsons memes, music tech news, celebrities, bizzare art projects.. I love my experience on X. I dont make any lists or anything.

They’ve also started auto-translating and cross posting Japanese X content, which has been the coolest cross-cultural thing I’ve experienced on the Internet since I started using IRC.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#786

Post by throwawaypath » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 1:23 AM UTC

rconti wrote: post #275

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.

Nobody who's not terminally online ever used Twitter.

Nobody who's not terminally online ever used BlueSky.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#787

Post by randallsquared » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 1:25 AM UTC

cbmuser wrote: post #524

paulbjensen wrote: post #333

There does seem to be evidence that X (formerly Twitter) is a dying platform, but what surprised me here is that longtime platforms like Snapchat, Reddit and even Pinterest get more MAUs than X - and this is more October 2025: https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-net... It would be really interesting to learn if brands and advertisers are seeing the same thing?

I find it hard to believe that WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram have almost the exact same number of users. This seems to be skewed data.

Are they not the same users? They're all part of the same org, so it seems likely that accounts for the others are mirrored or auto-created or whatever.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#788

Post by pseudohadamard » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 1:32 AM UTC

spopejoy wrote: post #782

helaoban wrote: post #259

>Our presence on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok is not an endorsement [...] We stay because the people on those platforms deserve access to information, too. We stay because some of our most-read posts are the ones criticizing the very platform we're posting on. We stay because the fewer steps between you and the resources you need to protect yourself, the better. Does this not apply to X users?

The story behind the numbers they present clearly demonstrates that X is censoring/shadowbanning them. Going from 600MM to 13MM impressions/yr -- losing 98% of their impressions! -- is no accident but clearly Musk's thumb on the scale. Imagine what this means if you are trying to gauge impact of a post. Remember, X is giving them zero information about who they're preventing from seeing it. Impressions is the main da…

It's not necessarily shadowbanning (although it could well be), given that it's been turned into a cesspit where huge numbers of users left and the ones still there are probably not the demographic that would engage with the EFF, it could just be a natural consequence of Musk's wrecking it.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#789

Post by pie_flavor » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 1:34 AM UTC

jesse_dot_id wrote: post #135

Astounds me that anyone is still using that platform after seeing how Musk treated the engineers when he took over.

Why am I supposed to care about that, as a platform user? Twitter isn't a jobs program for a particular set of engineers. I'll leave when it stops being entertaining. Comments like these are so weird.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#790

Post by hananova » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 1:34 AM UTC

poszlem wrote: post #686

hananova wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s just a word. People is fine too. Folks just sounds better.

If that were true then they would have written: "Young folks, folks of color, queer folks". This is not the case.

How very astute of you. I was of course talking about folks sounding better combined with queer. This is subjective of course, but the writers agreed.

What does it matter to you anyway?