Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

EFF is leaving X

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

791–800 of 1001 posts

Re: EFF is leaving X

#791

Post by pie_flavor »

Waterluvian wrote: post #544

On the topic of leaving X but not TikTok and Facebook : I think being principled but pragmatic is necessary more so than ever. If you always pick absolutes, you'll quickly find yourself helping nobody. It requires a right balance, otherwise you end up justifying the means to an end. Certain principles cannot be comrpromised, others are a bit of a luxury. It's a moving target. It's a fuzzy target. You'll never quite g…

This very conveniently allows one to pick any actions they like regardless of stated goals or principles. There's very little it couldn't be used to apply to. "I'm principled but only when it's easy" isn't much of a statement.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#792

Post by jrflowers »

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.

I love getting on the computer to write stuff like “Twitter is the only website where people aren’t terminally online”

Re: EFF is leaving X

#794

Post by dsr_ »

pseudohadamard wrote: post #788
spopejoy wrote: post #782

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Same result, either way.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#795

Post by AnthonyMouse »

phillipcarter wrote: post #647
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 problem they're not talking about is that for all the X users they could potentially help, their messages will be actively suppressed by the platform owner. Nate Silver, famously popular (...lol) with the online left, made a post about this recently: https://www.natesilver.net/p/social-media-has-become-a-freak... EFF is, politically, left wing.

> EFF is, politically, left wing.

EFF is more like classical liberal. They generally oppose regulation of speech/tech and oppressive laws like DMCA 1201 (anti-circumvention) but promote things in the nature of antitrust like right-to-repair. Everything is required to be crammed into a box now so that often gets called "left" because the tech companies (also called "left") have found it more effective to pay off the incumbents in GOP-controlled states when they don't like right-to-repair laws, although Hollywood ("left" again) are traditionally the ones pressuring Democrats to sustain the horrible anti-circumvention rule when they're in power.

It turns out trying to fit everything into one of two boxes is pretty unscientific.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#796

Post by hakrgrl »

vvpan wrote: post #750
ilyin wrote: post #639

They will accomplish nothing and be happy, like so many. I used to respect the exodus, but these days my mental heuristics go off with red alert at the sight of a Bluesky icon replacing Twitter in a website footer.

Why does that trigger a red alert?

Pattern recognition - people who are on bsky are overly concerned with pronouns and extreme leftist ideology and/or extreme hate for trump. There is no actual discourse. Just a bubble where there is no tolerance for debate or difference of opinion.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#797

Post by ergocoder »

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.

> how Musk treated the engineers

Probably the least impactful factor for most users.

Unfortunately, independent of the politics, Musk destroyed X with many many odd decisions. Rebranding from Twitter to X is one of the top ones.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#798

Post by shimman »

ghshephard wrote: post #201
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.

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…

This assumes that "breaking news" is accurate, it's not, nor is "breaking news" ever worth reading.

This is just busy work chasing nothing but vanity.

Like asking heroin addicts what heroin they prefer. What an utter waste time.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#799

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN