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Ask HN: If Twitter were to shutdown would you consider donating to keep running?
I am Twitter's user #11.278. I saw its glory and I see its struggle.
I feel Twitter is different from any other social network: it has a social impact, it's the first social network I turn to if I need trustworthy updates from the Italian geoseismic agency, or official updates.
And then I thought, if Twitter asked me a donation to keep running, would I donate?
- informatimago 10y agoOne problem with the current social media (twitter, facebook, youtube, etc), is that they belong to for-profit corporations and that those corporations are very rich, therefore very powerful, and own our politicians. Instead, social media, since it's used as a public place, should be entirely neutral. Therefore it needs to be community-owned and managed. Like, eg. Usenet. In this context, financement for such a social media system could be public (ie. implicit donation thru taxes), or we could explicitely donate, it wouldn't matter. The US Constitution First Ammendment protects free speech only on the public place. When you enter private space, (and twitter, facebook, the AppStore, etc ARE private spaces), you're bound to the rules established by the owner of the private space. Social media should be a public space.
- Rannath 10y agoProblem with that is that social media operates internationally. What's allowed in a public space is different for you and me (though functionally identical, since Canada and US as pretty close in that regard). For us and someone from China suddenly there's a world of difference. Making it a private space skirts some of those issues, AFAIK. TL;DR: Dealing with international law sucks.
- LordWinstanley 10y agoI wouldn't donate to save Twitter. Why should the general public bale out a commercial enterprise run (seemingly badly) by rich people for their own profit? In the unlikely event Twitter does go tits-up, you might want to check out the open source GNU Social. The most Twitter- like incarnation of which is at: https://quitter.no https://quitter.no In fact, if you're a fan of openness and open source generally, you might want to consider checking out GNU Social. It's actually better than Twitter in some ways (much larger character limit, for a start)
- ungzd 10y agoIn its current state probably not. It's already almost turned into facebook. If it's going to rollback to 2009's state, then maybe. Also, community in my corner of its social graph is heavily degraded. Everyone tries to make stupid sarcastic jokes and everything else is being shamed and silenced. So I think it's unrecoverable.