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EFF is leaving X

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Re: EFF is leaving X

#801

Post by krick »

This tragism and pathos of it is almost comical. A wounded Twitter warrior heavily sitting in his chair, wiping sweat from his forehead with a sleeve of his blood-stained shirt. "I'll keep fighting. Just Not on X", he mutters bravely. The wound being that, apparently, nobody reads his posts anymore.

I mean, seriously, if whatever they posted on Twitter actually helped anyone (I'd be surprised, but what do I know), then obviously they'd want to deliver it through every channel available to as many people as they can. If not, and they just want to show their protest by quitting — well, at least they could have tried to get themselves banned on Twitter and whine about it later everywhere else. But this — it's just pathetic.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#802

Post by Theodores »

stephen_g wrote: post #405
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 stoped using Twitter (around when it was changing to be X) because 60-70% of the accounts I cared about left the platform. More and more people will look elsewhere as more organisations and people who aren’t into Musk’s politics leave.

I think that a lot of people unconsciously quit Twitter/X due to friction/hassle.

By analogy, think of news websites that are generally paywalled, take ages to load and only offer 'USAID propaganda'. A lot of people just won't open a link to the New York Times and their ilk because of this friction. You might as well get the same story elsewhere.

Twitter/X has become similarly 'meh', perhaps even more so. A 'tweet' is measured in characters, originally SMS message length, now biglier, but still small. In theory you could get a feature length article on the NYT-style bloated news websites, so the friction could be worth the effort - in theory. But for a tweet? Why bother, particularly if it wants you to provide your age and other details that shouldn't be necessary, but marketing dictates otherwise.

As for Musk and his politics, I don't think Bezos is any better, as for Rupert Murdoch and the other press barons, they are equally odious. Yet, if the product is any good, I can overlook such awkward realities to a certain extent. If Amazon can get me that vital part I need tomorrow rather than 'in twenty eight days', then take my money!

I am a moderately heavy user of Telegram as I prefer to get curated news from there. If bad things are happening, I want to get my news from the natives, not from the 'Epstein' empire. Much is cross posted to X but much is not. All considered, nothing beats Telegram, particularly as far as friction is concerned, it makes X, WhatsApp, Instagram and much else seem to have a dated user interface.

IMHO, EFF need to embrace Telegram, not least because it reaches people in parts of the world where the EFF message resonates.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#803

Post by lolbert291 »

EFF: "We're tired of standing in this cesspit promoting clean water, we're just getting shit on us and more turds. We'll try standing in these other muddy ponds and try to get cleaned up and keep working"

an HN: "Cmon, you gotta stand in the biggest cesspit in the world, how else would you reach so many turds? Maybe you could tailor your clean water message to be less woke?"

EFF: "Our message is not amenable to asking grok to take its clothes off and give it a pacifier"

Re: EFF is leaving X

#804

Post by tstrimple »

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?

No it doesn't. Anyone sticking with X at this point is ideologically compromised. There's no reason even trying to reach them. They are hopeless.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#805

Post by peyton »

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…

[flagged]

Re: EFF is leaving X

#806

Post by solid_fuel »

dylan604 wrote: post #323
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.

Based on what they are seeing, nobody is seeing their posts on X either. That's the point. Did you miss it?

The post was longer than 280 characters, and is therefore invisible to this average internet user. Apparently.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#807

Post by phillipcarter »

Redoubts wrote: post #751
phillipcarter wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Nate Silver, [...] made a post about this recently Yeah and he put together an insane chart + data that's not tethered to reality.

It's quite tethered to reality.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#808

Post by scarab92 »

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…

They still get more engagement on X than on Bluesky.

Also, cross positing the same content on multiple platforms isn’t time consuming.

This is clearly EFF violating their stated commitment to political neutrality, and providing only a superficial and easily discredited rationale for cover.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#809

Post by catlikesshrimp »

hakrgrl wrote: post #793
mnls wrote: post #440

[flagged]

He did not do a Nazi salute. That is propaganda from legacy media. He has never even said anything remotely Nazi-like. He is pro free speech, pro humanity, pro USA.

The Anti-Defamation League said it was not a Nazi salute,[7] but other Jewish organizations disagreed and condemned the salute.[8][9][10][11] American public opinion was divided on partisan lines as to whether it was a fascist salute.[12] Neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups celebrated it as a Nazi salute.[15][16]

Don't trust my words, just look at the salute yourself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk_salute_controversy

Re: EFF is leaving X

#810

Post by roncinephile »

if you're a political action group then voluntarily choosing to limit the eyeballs on the ideas you're trying to espouse seems so counterproductive and antithetical for your raison d'être that it's hard not to look at this as shooting oneself in the foot. The PR person who thought this up is doing more harm than good. There's no way the metrics will improve because of this decision.
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