931–940 of 1001 posts
About time. Other platforms may not exactly be aligned with EFF’s goals, but Musk is outright endorsing the far right and neo-fascist parties in America and Europe.
I worked at EFF from 2001 to 2019. When I started, EFF was a very effective coalition between (primarily) progressives and libertarians. This had largely been the case since EFF was founded in 1990 by both progressives and libertarians. When people would call EFF a "left-wing" organization, I would correct them. It wasn't a left-wing organization, it was a big tent and had consistently had very significant non-left-w…
It was over for me when the EFF advanced the charge of government censorship of the internet. The EFF had previously been a client of mine so I was somewhat familiar with how things worked and basically once Gilmore was out, it went downhill. They did a lot of good work (much like the ACLU) but they are now honestly unrecognizable. My old company donated around $3k/mo of services for almost a decade which in the gran…
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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.
Because empathy is a trait of intelligence.
I worked at EFF from 2001 to 2019. When I started, EFF was a very effective coalition between (primarily) progressives and libertarians. This had largely been the case since EFF was founded in 1990 by both progressives and libertarians. When people would call EFF a "left-wing" organization, I would correct them. It wasn't a left-wing organization, it was a big tent and had consistently had very significant non-left-w…
"All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O%27Sullivan_(columnist)#...
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> 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…
As objective as you may want to sound, without any objective specific facts, all those words just boil down to "I'm a libertarian who used to support the EFF but don't like the way they're message anymore."
I am puzzled, not at EFF - this decision seems congruent with their ideals - no, I'm puzzled at the amount of comments on here that care so deeply about them staying on X, so much to garner 1000+ comments! So many people here seem to be taking this move as an offense at themselves. Why do people care so much about a private social media site?
- "what is the marginal cost of posting on X, it costs 0$!", which is obviously false. From a labor cost pov, but also because twitter charges for engagement.
- "this is clearly ideological"
- 'EFF is no longer neutral"
It almost seems... coordinated.
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.
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In this case, dealing with The Enemy is not only funding them, but lending your credibility. Maybe it would be worth it if, as you say, they are finding ways to reach non-supporters, but Twitter has been X for almost four years. If the EFF finds that they're not recruiting people from among their opponents, then they can reasonably say that they've spent enough time trying.
Credibility with who? We’re so polarized that a single binary label will shift all credibility. Experience, success, credentials none of it matters anymore. The left thinks everything on the right is stupid and evil, the right does the same, and everyone drinks their own kool aid. We’ve all stopped listening.