The Free Software Foundation Europe deleted its account on X

https://fsfe.org/news/2025/news-20251204-01.en.html

by latexr • 8 months ago

158 153 8 months ago

rvz• 8 months ago

What initially intended to be a place for dialogue and information exchange has turned into a centralised arena of hostility, misinformation, and profit-driven control, far removed from the ideals of freedom we stand for.

Always has been.

doener• 8 months ago

It got more deliberately manipulative with pushing a right wing agenda.

GaryBluto7• 8 months ago

It became more obviously manipulative when it started pushing a right wing agenda.

orwin• 8 months ago

The issue is the new algorithm I think. It's the same on thread. You're more likely to get a view by responding to outrage bait than by promoting your own work, while before it was 50/50: responding to bait was great to reach a new audience, but for people who already followed you, you could still reach them by posting 'normally'.

Do you follow any content creator anywhere? Before 2019, you basically _had_ to be on Twitter to follow updates. Then the media diversified, but by 2023, even people still on X will rather use discord to have update on content creator they follow (or, weirdly, Instagram it seems? At least my favourite vulgarisation content creator seems to think so)

mac-attack• 8 months ago

Good on them. It always feels like " But other than that, Mrs Lincoln enjoyed the play" watching people rationalize why they are still on Twitter or use Grok

stronglikedan2• 8 months ago

why would anyone need to rationalize it? they're still two of the best platforms in their respective silos. most people don't care about drama and virtue signaling

adamwong24610• 8 months ago

Only one rationalization is need- Musk is evil. If you are still using Twitter, as far as I am concerned, you in league with him. You might as well just put on a MAGA hat.

guywithahat• 8 months ago

Except now the just have less reach? I didn't follow them, so perhaps they had 10 followers and no reach to begin with, but this seems foolish if you have a mission you care about.

registeredcorn• 8 months ago

I found myself wondering the same thing. Do they genuinely expect people who have never heard about FSFE to be using a decentralized social platform? That sounds scary. Normal people don't use scary sounding things.

They're certainly welcome to do whatever they think is right, and it sounds more "on brand" for them, but it seems ridiculous to say something like "[Using Twitter was] important for reaching members of society who were not active in our preferred spaces for interaction." but then end with "Follow the FSFE on Mastodon and Peertube!" I am very tech literate and I've never even heard of Peertube. There is very little chance they are ever going to reach even a single set of ears this way.

At that point, they might as well just send random fliers in the mail to strangers.

scottyah9• 8 months ago

Exactly, seems like the people on X are exactly the people whose minds they should be trying to change.

rustaceanU32• 8 months ago

It's a good idea to leave X, considering the values of the Free Software Foundation and how they don't exactly align with X's profit-driven model, and the spread of internet garbage.

F3nd04• 8 months ago

I think either leaving a hostile platform or staying to promote ideas which run against it are reasonable choices. But what the article doesn't say is why they (as an organisation whose mission is to protect and promote free software) should choose to leave now, when from what I know, Twitter has always been a non-free, profit-driven network.

zvr• 8 months ago

Actually the announcement is by the Free Software Foundation Europe, an organization that empowers users to control technology.

0xcb0• 8 months ago

I congratulate you to that decision. Twitter is really a breeding ground for racism and hate. Nobody should be on that platform.

GaryBluto7• 8 months ago

Why does everybody I see complaining about modern Twitter say the exact phrase "Nobody should be on that platform."? I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with your point, just curious if there was some manifesto going around or if everybody suddenly started using the same phrase.

Is it just me or have people started using the same phrases more often and faster than before? Reminds me of when everybody started saying "God forbid" a few months ago.

davidw• 8 months ago

I don't know about the phrase, but I share the sentiment. The owner is a racist promoting racist things. It's not a 'public square' because he controls the algorithm, so it'll never be a 'fair fight' for those who disagree with him.

GoblinSlayer2• 8 months ago

It's a straightforward solution to the monopoly problem.

HtmlProgrammer2• 8 months ago

We want X to exist to contain these people.

The same situation applies to League of Legends and their wonderfully toxic player base

jedimastert2• 8 months ago

Can you find me some notable examples?

medler• 8 months ago

I did some searches for “nobody should be on that platform” and found:

- one hit on a Lana del Rey message board

- one bluesky post from 8 months ago with no likes, reposts, or replies.

If you widen the search to “should be on that platform” then you get more hits, but many are references to Instagram, Discord, Snapchat, TikTok etc. It seems that people are reaching for a noun that can refer to these social media properties that are not just “sites” and not just “apps.” It would appear that ”platform” is the word we’ve landed on.

jajuuka• 8 months ago

Like pareidolia humans are great at seeing patterns that don't exist. Nobody should on that platform is an extremely common phrase. So you'll probably hear it more than once. However that doesn't mean there is a conspiracy.

drcongo• 8 months ago

Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.

normalaccess• 8 months ago

The groupthink is real, and it's coming for a skull near you.

But in all seriousness I think it's a mix of bots on the dead internet leading the monkey see monkey do paradigm. If you see 80 out of 100 people doing a thing then you get swept up in the flood. Even if 50 of those 80 are bots.

PixelForg• 8 months ago

Really depends on your feed, I first muted Elon, and only follow artists, so that's all my feed is, no hate or any racism.

pavlov• 8 months ago

But you had to mute the owner and sole decision maker of the platform to get that result.

How long will he allow the peasants to mute or block him?

FuriouslyAdrift2• 8 months ago

I made and follow my own "lists" and that blocks just about anything (including most ads). Also, having just under 10,000 block and mute words helps a bit.

sixtyj2• 8 months ago

The same. I follow tech accounts and some parody accounts and haven’t never seen racism&co.

But x’s algorithm is a self-evolving b*tch so my recent feed can change anytime…

kayamon• 8 months ago

It doesn't. Elon will happily spam your notifications with his own racist tweets directly, even if you don't follow him.

rsynnott3• 8 months ago

Back when I still had an account, after never seeing his content in the previous ~15 years I had been using Twitter, he was suddenly all over my feed. I had to mute him, and then, when that didn't work, block him, within months of his takeover.

FuriouslyAdrift2• 8 months ago

That's social media in general

adamwong24610• 8 months ago

It's not the content- it's the ownership. I don't want to give another dime to Mush and Zuckerberg.

tb_technical3• 8 months ago

Many artists (and normal people) publish their works there: from anime girls to short story updates on royal road.

throw0101d• 8 months ago

While I'm not against people not-using Twitter/X (or any other platform): would it have been better to keep the account as a 'placeholder' so no one else can grab it? Have a post saying "We do not monitor this account." or some such?

conartist6• 8 months ago

Why help Twitter be a safer more trustworthy platform when Twitter doesn't seem to want to be a safe or trustworthy platform?

catapart4• 8 months ago

You only need a placeholder if you think the platform matters enough to hold space for. For example: they don't have a placeholder on MySpace.

But if your goal is to prevent other people from having the name altogether, the move I personally enjoyed engaging in was getting my account blocked. That forces them to hold your account only to prevent anyone from using it, lest you might sneak back in and say something "harmful" like "stonetoss is hans kristian graebener".

GaryBluto7• 8 months ago

the move I personally enjoyed engaging in was getting my account blocked.

So you think the FSF should've used the account representing them to troll?

latexr4• 8 months ago

the move I personally enjoyed engaging in was getting my account blocked.

Interesting idea. What did you do?

say something "harmful" like "stonetoss is hans kristian graebener".

What that it?

verytrivial• 8 months ago

I agree. Park the handle with a polite "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy" note and a suggested list of other places for more fruitful discussion.

jedimastert2• 8 months ago

I don't think twitter allows someone to take over an account after it's been deleted

kstrauser• 8 months ago

They absolutely do. Someone’s parked on what use to be my account there.

KomoD• 8 months ago

During deactivation period nobody can take the username but after deletion I'm pretty sure they can.

rsynnott3• 8 months ago

They do. I believe that, for once, this isn't even Musk's fault; this baffling design decision predates him.

croes• 8 months ago

You could still lose your account

https://help.x.com/en/using-x/x-handle-marketplace

rsynnott3• 8 months ago

Also, Twitter, bafflingly, allows reuse of usernames. After I deleted my (very old; original id was <1 million) Twitter account, I think it was briefly grabbed by a spammer; the username now shows as 'suspended'.

So yeah, a dead placeholder is probably the safest choice.

scottyah9• 8 months ago

That's a lot of words with not a lot of substance. I suppose their whole identity is announcing that they're superior to other people and branching off, while asking for money for what looks like mostly sending people to talk at events (which are probably mostly more fundraising).

"In the current situation we see ourselves unable to collaborate both with the FSF and any other organisation[sic] in which Richard Stallman has a leading position."

I do wish more people would try to fix things from the inside, and I get there's a point where it's no longer possible, but in this case it sounds like they didn't like people calling them out on X and had no way to control the narrative. What other gain would there be for a group trying to spread information in as many channels as possible?

n4r93• 8 months ago

What strategies could FSF employ to "fix things from the inside" on Twitter?

scottyah9• 8 months ago

Talk openly and transparently with whomever is not aligning with their ideals. They used to call it discussion.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF4• 8 months ago

The pull quote doesn't appear in the linked article. What is it from?

edit: https://fsfe.org/about/fsfnetwork.html

venturecruelty2• 8 months ago

Who knew that an ideologically-oriented organization would have morals and values, and that they wouldn't be aligned with Leon? Maybe they should've just sold out to AI, then they'd get a ticker tape parade.

scottyah9• 8 months ago

From what I saw, their page has a lot of writing and no data on successes. I think that sums it up. They sold out to Pride instead of Greed.

jrm46• 8 months ago

Bad idea.

Love it or hate it, Twitter (yeah, I choose to be stubborn here) is still probably overwhelmingly the most impactful platform in this way.

While I respect the idea of the "boycott" in the abstract, perhaps the most wrong thing people think about it is "Because it's controlled by so-and-so, everyone who uses it is brainwashed and it's impossible to do good there."

Nope. Look, a lot of good people are still there. I personally also wish they would all leave and we all go elsewhere -- but that's not the present reality.

As such, people who insist that you must leave and no good can happen through staying ring the same to me as "IF SO AND SO GETS ELECTED IM LEAVING THE COUNTRY."

m-hodges• 8 months ago

Pretending you’re going to emigrate from your home country is not similar to actually logging off from a website you hate.

yokoprime• 8 months ago

I don’t think leaving a platform you don’t enjoy has much, if anything, in common with physically relocating. I left X, but I have an account i use to log in about once a week to see if there’s anything worth while. I haven’t really found an alternative to X, things are fragmented now. Where I used to be able to follow most people I were interested in on Twitter, i now have some on bluesky, some on mastodon, some still on X, a bunch at instagram and YouTube… it’s a mess

jrm46• 8 months ago

The parallel I'm drawing here is that a lot of people threaten that when they don't really mean it, and more specifically, don't seem to think about why others don't.

I still have people there, so I will stick around.

GoblinSlayer2• 8 months ago

Wasn't it supposed as a feature of mastodon when people are on different servers and you can integrate them email style?

Devasta• 8 months ago

Nah, fuck that. If Stormfront had half a billion daily users that doesn't somehow compel you to participate; anyone willing to stay on Twitter isn't worth talking to even if they are personally nice to you.

baud147258• 8 months ago

Stormfront users wouldn't have really been relevant for the FSF. But on a platform like Twitter, which isn't mono-subject like the Stormfront forums, would have been relevant for an organization like FSF.

And personally the few people I follow there (mostly game devs) are totally worth talking to.

jrm46• 8 months ago

Be serious.

Stormfront is not like Twitter.

spacedcowboy• 8 months ago

Never used twitter. Never found that to be a problem or limitation in any way. Now it's owned by Musk, it's even less attractive a prospect.

Speaking as someone who recently left the country (if by "the country" you mean the USA) ...

jrm46• 8 months ago

And that's fine if that's what YOU WANT TO DO. I respect that.

The insufferables are those who are trying to dictate what I should do.

MisterTea• 8 months ago

I don't understand people who have the opinion that twitter is indispensable for them. I never had a twitter account and I only see tweets if they are posted on some news site or whatever. I don't feel uninformed. I don't feel like I am missing any critical information. I don't see any value in it.

JumpCrisscross• 8 months ago

don't understand people who have the opinion that twitter is indispensable

Not on X. But if you’re a public figure, it sort of is. You don’t need to post anything. But you’re going to be affected by what happens there.

tcfhgj2• 8 months ago

Nope. Look, a lot of good people are still there. I personally also wish they would all leave and we all go elsewhere -- but that's not the present reality.

be the change you want to see

jrm46• 8 months ago

I am!

That's the other part of this that makes these naysayers insufferable; you can use more than one.

My twitter handle literally has my mastodon handle IN IT.

adamwong24610• 8 months ago

Every click on Twitter puts a penny in musks pocket. If that is not enough reason to leave, nothing ever will be.

dzhiurgis2• 8 months ago

Reductio ad absurdum

quotemstr• 8 months ago

Note the word "Europe":

In the current situation we see ourselves unable to collaborate both with the FSF and any other organisation in which Richard Stallman has a leading position

https://fsfe.org/about/fsfnetwork.html

These guys are entitled to use or avoid any social media platform they want. I'm entitled, as well, to judge them for putting purity tests in unrelated domains above their commitment to free software and thereby rendering themselves ineffective in their primary mission.

Irrelevance is their choice.

That said, there's a transparency consideration. Doesn't Europe have laws about charities having to use donor funds to advance the ostensible purpose of the charity?

Matthias Kirschner is FSFE president and a full time employee. Do FSFE's donors know the FSFE is making itself less effective towards its mission of promoting free software by avoiding people who the FSFE leadership team dislike for reasons unrelated to free software? If they want to do this stuff, they should put it in their charter.

aniviacat• 8 months ago

I don't see how they would be any more transparent about it.

lukeschlather• 8 months ago

If you ever run a large organization you will quickly find there are lots of people you are unable to cooperate with for reasons unrelated to your organization's primary mission. Especially in a nonprofit, the primary thing for being effective in your mission is having people who want to work together, if you have people who can't stand each other you're not going to be effective.

bgwalter3• 8 months ago

That is not true. The libertarian free-speech FSF(E) was way more effective in 2000 than it is now.

All these organizations have been infiltrated by career bureaucrats who have their pet political wedge issues and bite away everyone else. Of course they are silent on the really big issues. They would ban Stallman but not go after Epstein's real friends.

And that is in a nutshell how these political pseudo movements differ from the real political movements at the end of the sixties. At that time they were not afraid of going after the big guys.

HtmlProgrammer2• 8 months ago

There are plenty of people who love FOSS and terminally on X. Yes they are crazy, paranoid and racist but thats cutting off one of your key markets lol

add-sub-mul-div• 8 months ago

You can either be a leader or a follower.

adamwong24610• 8 months ago

Perhaps, but of all people, FOSS devotees should know why Twitter needs to die. The fact that so many people remain on the platform is disheartening to say the least. How bad does it have to get before you refuse to take part?

tkel• 8 months ago

Well then it's a good thing the FSFE isn't selling commodities on the "market"

fpauser• 8 months ago

What is X?

throwawaydec4• 8 months ago

The new name for Twitter, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter#Since_2022

natch• 8 months ago

I see more hate and misinformation on Mastodon than I see on X. Here is a very mild one:

[edit: link removed; I don't want to promote that guy but to give the gist he was saying that people who believe in free speech are trash, targeting X users with hate. Mastodon is absolutely saturated with this.]

Most of the criticism I see of X seems completely made up out of malice or is regurgitation of things other poorly informed or resentful people have said.

The supposed FSF in Europe should post links to the sections of the open source algorithm they claim to be criticizing, and show us their PR.

kettlecorn• 8 months ago

My criticism of X is primarily rooted in 2 things: the massive degradation of my experience using the platform and a distrust that Musk wouldn't use the platform to manipulate public opinion to achieve political goals.

On the first point the simplest thing is I used to report people who use overt slurs or anti-semitic language. When Musk took over it started taking months for them to follow up and the response was simply to lock the account until they deleted the offending tweet. Eventually when I would report those people X just switched to saying they weren't breaking the rules. Now the replies of tons of seemingly normal posts that get lots of visibility are full of vile people trying to derail conversation with racism or anti-semitism.

Another big problem is the way that blue-check accounts are boosted has incentivized every account to act like click-bait all the time. Whenever a post gets semi-viral the blue-check replies are artificially lifted to the top and most of them are totally worthless because the commenters are just trying to 'grab space' so people click their profile and follow them. It used to be that if big accounts posted something interesting you might see a bunch of interesting follow up replies. Now it's spammers at the top and then racists / crazies mixed in with more thoughtful replies if you scroll down a few pages past the blue-checks. It used to be that the algorithmic feed would surface me all sorts of interesting and novel work from people across the tech world but now there's a whole category of people trying to make every single Tweet viral enough to get payouts.

And then there's Musk himself. He's ordered the algorithm to be manipulated to boost himself more. He's clearly expressed discontent when the algorithm doesn't work the way he wants, he's meddled heavily in the platform's AI bot to make it say things Musk prefers, and he's been rather unscrupulous chasing his political goals. I think it's not unlikely he'd use the platform to guide public opinion, perhaps even using AI to do it discretely and intelligently. I view that as a significant risk.

So the platform has gone from something that's highly useful to me, and a place I greatly enjoyed, to something that more often than not wastes my time and exposes me to people that disturb me. And on top of all that I think contributing to the platform may empower someone who I deeply distrust to manipulate public opinion towards their political goals.

malcolmgreaves• 8 months ago

he was saying that people who believe in free speech are trash, targeting X users with hate.

That’s not hate speech.

You sound like Michael from the office!

AnimalMuppet• 8 months ago

The GP didn't say it was hate speech. Said it was hate. And calling someone trash... yeah, I think that fits within my definition of hate.

stronglikedan2• 8 months ago

and nothing of value was lost

faidit• 8 months ago

The best time to leave Twitter was when Elon made it a yahtzee pron site. The next best time is now. Kudos to the FSFE, it's never too late to do the right thing.

mvdtnz• 8 months ago

What's a "yahtzee pron site"?

adamwong24610• 8 months ago

certain words get filtered out by the algorithms. "yahtzee" translates to "Those snappily dressed German fascists during WWII". "pron" translates to "sexually explicit material". So if you don't want your posts flagged, you have to use code words.

F3nd04• 8 months ago

Generally speaking, both using and not using X seem like reasonable choices for the FSFE, in my opinion. But deciding to leave it right now over changes in 'direction and climate' seems… odd.

The FSFE's mission, as I understand it, is to support and promote free software. But as far as I know, Twitter has never been a friend of free software, nor has it been supportive of other related values the article mentions, like 'privacy', 'transparency', 'autonomy', 'data protection', etc. It has always been a non-free, centralised network which cared about profit more than user rights, and engagement more than fostering civil discourse.

I don't see FSFE's presence on a platform as endorsement of its values, but rather as a way to leverage its popularity to better promote their mission. That hasn't changed; X is still a popular platform. It's attitude to Free Software and related ideas doesn't seem to have changed, either. So why leave now? I get 'misinformation, harassment, and hate speech' are never a good thing, but I don't recall the FSFE opposing them so vehemently before (more like just ignoring them), so why now, out of the blue? Unless there's been a change in their internal priorities, which they don't communicate, it doesn't really add up for me.

In the end, this just reads like them taking a political stance and trying to rationalise it in more neutral language. And I can understand and respect that decision, but the fuzzy phrasing still rubs me the wrong way.

anonymous9082132• 8 months ago

It's really not that fuzzy.

The FSFE's mission, as I understand it, is to support and promote free software. But as far as I know, Twitter has never been a friend of free software, nor has it been supportive of other related values the article mentions, like 'privacy', 'transparency', 'autonomy', 'data protection', etc. It has always been a non-free, centralised network which cared about profit more than user rights, and engagement more than fostering civil discourse.

Indeed, and FSFE writes:

The platform never aligned with our values
a space we were never comfortable joining, yet one that was once important for reaching members of society who were not active in our preferred spaces for interaction

And then says in no unclear terms what changed:

Since Elon Musk acquired the social network [...] the FSFE has been closely monitoring the developments of this proprietary platform
Over time, it has become increasingly hostile, with misinformation, harassment, and hate speech more visible than ever.
an algorithm that prioritises hatred, polarisation, and sensationalism, alongside growing privacy and data protection concerns, has led us to the decision to part ways with this platform.

You cherry-picked two words "direction and climate" from the article and criticised them for taking an ambiguous political stance, but there is nothing ambiguous about the actual announcement and they clarify their exact motivation for leaving multiple times.

F3nd04• 8 months ago

The problem is that 'what changed' is hardly related to why they joined Twitter in the first place. Becoming 'increasingly hostile' and prioritising 'hatred, polarisation, and sensationalism' (more than before) doesn't really contradict or prevent you from 'reaching members of society who were not active in [y]our preferred spaces for interaction'. Like I wrote, X is still popular, there are still people you can communicate with about your mission. The original logical (and given) reason for being on X is still just as valid.

And I didn't criticise them for taking an ambiguous stance. On the contrary, I remarked they seem to be taking a rather unambiguous political stance (one opposed to that of X's new leadership). What I criticised was their not being upfront about this and instead giving explanations which don't really add up for me (for reasons restated above).

I quoted only short parts to avoid making my comment appear twice as long, but please let me know if you found the way I did so to be misleading in some way.

Ferret7446• 8 months ago

Apparently, controlling what people are allowed to say "in the name of good" aligns with the FSFE's values. I know enough history to know what that means.

adamwong24610• 8 months ago

If you still have a twitter account, you really ought to be ashamed. There's no longer any excuses.

froggertoaster3• 8 months ago

What should anyone with an X account be ashamed of, exactly?

adamwong24610• 8 months ago

Because you are putting more money in the pocket of Musk.

tastyface• 8 months ago

Go ask MechaHitler.

bgwalter3• 8 months ago

Ok, now how about a GPL-4 that forbids "AI" training?

bgwalter3• 8 months ago

FSFE stooges downvote because they do not want to be reminded of their real mission. Interesting.

qustrolabe2• 8 months ago

bad idea

jMyles• 8 months ago

I want something that seems so very simple:

* A web-of-trust social media, where I can instantly see, about any account, all of the chains of separation between us, in order to verify and validate the humanity and social connection of another person.

Presently, twitter (and even moreso, reddit) are just so overrun by bots whose job seems to be to muddy all waters with short-shrift, low-effort takes, but expressed in way more words than are necessary.

I don't mind (in fact, I love) long-form posts like were common in the old reddit, but that are thoughtful and perhaps radical (in the same of addressing the root of the subject). Today's reddit is almost as bad as twitter. I'm kinda ready to get off both of them, but I'd like to still have daily engagement on topics that challenge me / my worldviews.

pessimizer• 8 months ago

I would say that I hate this, but I actually don't know what good it does to be a political organization actively engaging on social media anymore. There are too many paid mercenaries with expensive automation who will disrupt whatever you do.

But what are they going to do instead, nothing? Killing yourself in protest makes it really easy on your enemies (and aren't the only enemies of Free Software the people who want to sell closed devices?). Do what you do, don't feel like you have to control all the responses to what you do, or that they are hurting you. Your engagement with the public is independent of any reaction to you. You have total control over it. In this case, it looks like you're choosing to withdraw into a closet and only speak to your friends.

All that being said, twitter/X, both pre-Musk and post-Musk, sabotaged and sabotages reach based on opinionated, political, and profit-driven algorithms. People don't even see you. If your reach numbers were crap, you might as well not waste the effort. But I actually don't know what the effort is to fire and forget links to your press releases and current campaigns that you've doubtlessly posted other places. Seems almost zero.

My fear is that this is being pushed by people who are simply taking advantage of their power in an organization to push their own personal grievances. Free Software should only care about Elon Musk and Twitter to the extent that it is not Free Software. If you've moved into the "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil" place, you've lost the plot.

I'm also getting a bit sick of Europeans stepping out of conversations because they aren't censored enough, even if the algorithm is definitely promoting the worst for engagement. It's scary. Europe has a comically bad history with this.

edit: and even the mention of "misinformation" is a red flag. I don't want a FSF that is a "misinformation" and hate speech monitor. I want a FSF that neonazis and climate skeptics feel free to join if they think that software should be Free.

zoobab• 8 months ago

"We keep being active on some other proprietary platforms in order to reach a wider part of society, journalists, and decision makers."

Stallman would not be proud.

german_dong• 8 months ago

The only way to get attention on X is to announce you're leaving it. Well played, whoever you are.

dzonga• 8 months ago

I hate how announcements etc from gvt officials, public entities etc started getting announced on X, Fb or social media in general ?

what happened to the official blob & official press releases ? these things are a solved problem (wordpress etc, if you wanna subscribe use RSS)

SilverElfin• 8 months ago

I don’t really like the political nature of these decisions. It feels like political people often take over groups and institutions to implement their own political agendas through such policies.

On the other hand, Twitter/X has a problem of spam. I don’t even think it’s bots but actual humans. You see low effort and racist comments all over the place, poisoning the conversations. And it’s not just on political posts. If you’re Chinese or African or Indian, there will be vile comments spamming your posts.

Such a space isn’t welcoming to many people and I think groups like FSFE have legitimate reasons to want to avoid exposing their members to this stuff. It’s a hostile environment.

qustrolabe2• 8 months ago

"the current platform direction and climate combined with an algorithm that prioritises hatred, polarisation, and sensationalism, alongside growing privacy and data protection concerns"

While I agree that this platform has a lot of hateful people, it's definitely possible after some basic internet hygiene end up with nice recommendations feed especially after forming solid following list with good people, no hatred no politics only coolest people doing cool things. I like it there. It's the place where things happen that you read about on other cites only weeks later in some twisted form

cbeach• 8 months ago

X.com is not a "breeding ground for racism and hate" any more than Reddit or Facebook (I've seen some hair-raising content on all the main platforms).

The difference with X.com is that is doesn't systematically censor anti-establishment / rightwing voices.

That's why the Left hate and fear X.com.

akimbostrawman2• 8 months ago

"racism and hate" is double speak for opinion the left doesn't like/allow. quite funny how transparent it has become even for hn.

greentea232• 8 months ago

Could you provide a specific example of an opinion labeled as "racist and hateful" that you believe was misclassified as such?

The Free Software Foundation Europe deleted its account on X

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