Crossposting here as I consider X a threat to both privacy and freedom
“I consider X a threat to both privacy and freedom.”
*uses change.org instead of the EU mechanism to submit petitions to the parliament…
This has to have been made by an American living in Europe.
I don’t know
Wouldn’t that enable an angle of “martyr for freedom of speech”?
And while I agree that it stopped being what it was and we can’t rely on it anymore, wouldn’t that separate EU from the rest of the world given current market share?
In my opinion: abandon - yes. Ban - no
Abandon would be the best approach. A ban would just make people want to use it more.
When twitter (now formally know as “X”) was first a thing, the only reason I joined was because private business, city services, and news agencies became a little easier to follow in one unified location. It also made it easier to reach them with quick tweets.
Maybe the solution is to put a restriction on business, news agencies, and government services from using it?
Maybe the solution is to put a restriction on business, news agencies, and government services from using it?
But that opens another can of worms. A precedence for a governing body to say which platforms can be used for reaching your audience. I’m afraid the change will have to come from the bottom
If anything, I’d phrase it “public service messaging has to operate on platforms which don’t require an account to read”. But that doesn’t solve the problem of general culture on the service
Initially thought the post was an attempt on a joke. But yes, what would banning prove?
X might be a threat to privacy and freedom but doesn’t Facebook, Microsoft and others do the same. It looks like a poorly developed plan.
in my opinion facebook and microsoft are worse because you can’t optionally avoid them. no matter what you do, you’re still paying for microsoft products through your taxes with money that should go into domestic development. facebook is so insideous that in some countries it is the de-facto internet (because it’s free to use without a paid internet plan/subscription); all hobby communities that i’m aware of now exclusively live on facebook, and forget your grandma having any other means of contact than through facebook messenger and certain companies and services offer facebook messenger only live support. and as a business owner? you don’t have a choice on the matter, facebook (and google) is the only means to advertise nowadays that have actual measurable results on the campaign budget.
twitter? unless you’re a creative or a connoisseur of creatives, it actually has a lot less relevance than the current drama suggests, otherwise the big alternative platforms wouldn’t have actual relevance and upwards mobility, which they currently do.
In my opinion: abandon - yes. Ban - no
Perhaps it is time to bring this old post of mine back from the dead? I argue that we have to start a war of attrition on mainstream platforms.
I’m not against this angle. But IMO evangelization and conversions only really worked when backed by the state
My approach is calmly keep using free platforms, keep degoogling, when sharing information, share the links from those free platforms, so it keeps pinging in general consciousness that these exist. So the next time everyone does suprised pikachu face to what extent our data is used against us, you don’t have to say “see? I told you”. They come to you asking how to do this, what are the limitations and realities of getting free etc
But, of course, as with everything, diversity is a strength. Some of us should fight, some of us stay calm and keep going on
I think
Wouldn’t that enable an angle of “martyr for freedom of speech”?
Could you elaborate on this angle? I’m not very well versed in the rights of companies operating in the EU, but I’m unsure “freedom of speech” is one of them.
Edit: I did find information about how social media needs to help us protect freedom of speech for all of their users. Currently, X is doing the opposite it seems
Could you elaborate on this angle? I’m not very well versed in the rights of companies operating in the EU, but I’m unsure “freedom of speech” is one of them.
I rather mean “political discourse”
There was Twitter. Apart from advertising, the very good thing it brought was free access to information. But not only getting it, also sharing. So we knew about for example Arab Spring or Umbrella protests and more or less what is going on, before news decided to tell us and how to tell us
Then came Musk, all in white, saying that moderation on Twitter is biased and he’s going to bring it more freedom of speech
Some time passes and let’s say that now EU does ban X. What’s the next logical thing he’ll say?
I think it might be something like “see? EU banned X because they didn’t like the truth. For the truth, come to me”. I’m afraid that banning would rather give him power and echo chamber, rather than fixing what is going on
Let me guess, you think Russia/China/etc. banning websites is bad (because obviously they are doing it due to being authoriatarian regimes and to not let people learn the truth), and EU (or generally any western country) banning websites is good (because obviously it would be done to protect democracy and people from consuming dangerous misinformation)?
Did I miss anything? :)
Yes, you missed how social media algorithms work, having captivated the attention of whole nations, and carefully control every bit of information that pass in front of your eyes, then some billionaire buying said mechanism and taking part in the government he helped elected, then threatening the nations that have banned him that they will lose the next elections. Did I miss anything?
Real democracies need to shield themselves from this kind of corporate interference, yet most people don’t even understand how it works, or why Cambridge Analytica was a big hit, or where are these experts now and how they are making a living.
Yeah, so just as I said - good guys banning social medias is good because they are the good guys protecting the democracy against bad people and so on, and bad guys banning social medias is bad because they are the bad guys censoring the truth from oppressed people or something.
No hypocrisy here :)
This is not a matter of opinion, rather than centralized control of information.
Musk can shadow ban you, for example, nobody granted him that power except he was able to by it.
This type of social media are a power structure that is despotic in nature, and it is deeply problematic for democracies.
It is not like a nation state banning a religious minority or an anarchist site. That would be censoring of opinions.
In the case of Xitter, it is Musk and a team of political advertising engineers doing the censorship. So they are worse than Nazi apologists for example. The latter we only anticipate they will impose censorhip (let alone murder) once they are in power.
Xitter has that power already at orders of magnitude above what traditional media outlets have. He controls the flow of information. (And he made it a fucking nazi bar right enough).
But I will grant you that we should not expect nation states to ban Xitter. We should aim for its destruction.
Pointing out their hypocrisy will not help anybody. The best you can do is sit down and watch this comedy from the sidelines.
Pointing out their hypocrisy will not help anybody.
I choose to, perhaps naively, think that some people might actually recognize how absurd this is, and hopefully change their opinion :)
The best you can do is sit down and watch this comedy from the sidelines.
Just “watching comedy from the sidelines” can result in one day waking up in a totalitarian hell :/
(Not that my shitposting will change much of course :/)
Musk has openly supported right-wing politicians such as Trump and Meloni in Italy
Not right-wing, far right. Or fascists. Even though Meloni is much more coherent than Trump so it’s difficult to put both of them in the same basket.
Idk why a ban is necessary. Just remove some of the protections so they can be held liable for things they should be held liable for.
They’re currently not liable for third-party content (if they have reasonable moderation policies and respond in a timely manner to requests, yada yada). But if they promote it, they are no longer a passive hosting platform; they are actively promoting content so should be held proportionately liable for that content.
