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EFF is leaving X

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Re: EFF is leaving X

#841

Post by amatecha »

peyton wrote: post #805
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…

[flagged]

On a decent social platform, it shouldn't even matter if their posting sucks or is lazy. If I followed them, I want to see their stuff. If I'm not seeing the posts of the accounts I follow, the site is not worth me using - same if ppl who explicitly followed me aren't seeing my posts.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#842

Post by solid_fuel »

schoen wrote: post #572
contagiousflow wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember hearing the phrase "that's not an EFF issue" spoken much more frequently in the earlier part of my time at the organization. I'm not saying that isn't a valid critique, but from 2001 to 2019 so much more of out culture, politics, and protest have shifted to online spaces (for better or worse). Do you think that the EFF just has _more_ to do now because of the shifting needs of our online spaces and the i…

I mentioned that interpretation very briefly in my post. If EFF had continued to be better at political neutrality, I'm sure many observers would have been surprised at times that it declined to take positions on some of the hot issues of the day. That hypothetical reticence could have been interpreted as cowardice or irrelevance, or as saving up political capital to really focus on a smaller number of more fundament…

To be slightly more (maybe less) fair from an admittedly leftist bias, I think that the example of age verification misses another important component that has been pulled into the culture wars: a lot of age verification laws also target things like sexual education, which in some cases is construed to mean anything that touches on queer identities, even biographies and basic educational material.

The religious right tends to be against all forms of sexual education that aren't based around abstinence and usually want explicit parental involvement, but many on the left feel a basic but complete sexual education is important to educate kids about consent and bodily autonomy, which often helps children recognize things like grooming and assault where other forms of education fail.

Unfortunately that is an emotional topic and quickly gets into an area where classic libertarians (and there doesn't seem to be many left, these days) prioritize parental choice over freedom of speech. The EFF still needs to navigate these issues to be effective, but I don't think the old coalition holds like it used to.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#844

Post by solid_fuel »

throwawaypath wrote: post #688
runako wrote: post #663

Some context. Worth keeping in mind that Twitter/X is something like the 8th largest US-based social media site. Like it's ~1/6 the size of Facebook. It's in all probability smaller than Pinterest (we cannot get trustworthy numbers from Twitter/X). LinkedIn is 2x its size, and real people across a swath of society use it. Knocking Threads for the Instagram distribution is silly because part of the point of posting is…

BlueSky and Mastodon are much smaller than Twitter/X, and they're staying on the platforms, so this is a moot point.

BlueSky and Mastodon are both open platforms designed around the ideals of digital freedom and control of your own data and feed. It makes perfect sense for the EFF to remain on platforms which are aligned with their goals. This is like criticizing them for dropping Microsoft Word but still using Libre Office.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#845

Post by loeg »

ethersteeds wrote: post #288
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.

Do regular people that aren't terminally online use X? I don't know any.

Something like 20% of Americans use Twitter.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#846

Post by nailer »

trollbridge wrote: post #246
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…

Well, Twitter has a lot of separate spheres. It's pretty easy to curate just tpot (the part that concerns itself with the Bay area, venture capital, and so forth) by following the right people and then engaging with posts that are on-topic.

What does the abbreviation stand for?

Re: EFF is leaving X

#847

Post by solid_fuel »

sirbutters wrote: post #80
kennywinker wrote: post #2

As we all should. I’m not playing in a billionaire’s toxic propaganda sandbox, neither should you.

Why is your comment getting shadowed. The F is wrong with HN crowd.

There's a lot of people who are really upset that some folks don't like Elon.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#848

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

fsckboy wrote: post #756
mghackerlady wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there isn't enough people left there to be worth the tradeoff

> there isn't enough people left there to be worth the tradeoff what tradeoff?

This is what I haven’t seen a single person defending this attempt to answer.

What cost is there to post on X at the same time as the other platforms? Zero. It’s not like they need to moderate forums.

We all know what the people defending this are doing it for and EFF barely plays into it at all. This is Musk Man Bad, nothing more.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#849

Post by JeremyNT »

gonzobonzo wrote: post #752
supern0va wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>X, for better or worse, gets you eyes, more so than any other alternative social media. But that is actually what they called out: they're not getting eyes anymore. Views at X have cratered so hard that it's barely worth the time.

I just checked their Facebook and X page. The X page is getting much more eyes. For instance, they posted their article "The FAA’s “Temporary” Flight Restriction for Drones is a Blatant Attempt to Criminalize Filming ICE" to both accounts. The results: X: 1,500 likes, 50 comments, 846 shares. Facebook: 58 likes, 8 comments, 22 shares. Bluesky: 94 likes, 3 comments, 51 shares.

You realize these numbers are meaningless right?

Even if you assumed there isn't some Elon "like multiplier" being applied to these numbers, the amount of bot activity on X is staggering.

You have no idea how many humans are being reached without metrics about links being followed.

Re: EFF is leaving X

#850

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

WatchDog wrote: post #827
lta wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just a drop compared to the ocean compared to this one time when he performed multiple nazi salute in front of an entire country, or when he single handedly decided to intervene in a foreign war via Star link control or when he messed with entire branches of the American government

> nazi salute, foreign war intervention, government influence Leading with the supposed "nazi salute" really detracts from the other, much more legitimate and substantive issues you raised.

Disagree. It tells me all I need to know about the person riled up about it.
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