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> 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 de
by pmdr 6mo ago
> 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.
- supern0va 6mo ago>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.
- takoid 6mo agoBut it's worth their time to stay on platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon? Something isn't adding up.
- VHRanger 6mo agoThere's presumably engagement on those two. It's better to have a smaller core of highly engaged people than a mass of disengaged eyeballs glazing over.
- hrimfaxi 6mo agoDoes it have to be either/or?
- philistine 6mo agoVolunteer your time to do a dual strategy with content that fits both. Comms takes time, the EFF is adapting its comm strategy.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- hrimfaxi 6mo agoPushing messages out to multiple platforms is a solved problem. Parent said > It's better to have a smaller core of highly engaged people than a mass of disengaged eyeballs glazing over. which to me, it's better to spew a message out into the ether with the chance that someone might happen upon it rather than close things off entirely.
- omgmajk 6mo agoSurely copy-pasting a short text and possibly a link is not actual work that takes time. All they would need to do is set up some cross-posting pipeline and the work would be pretty much zero. They could even drive people to click on mastodon/bsky links this way if they wanted people to go to the decentralized web. This take is not valid.
- Rover222 6mo agoRetreating into smaller and smaller echo chambers where they get their way?
- nerevarthelame 6mo agoThey're also still posting on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube (in addition to BlueSky and Mastodon). It's silly to suggest that anything outside of X is an echo chamber, or that one must communicate on a platform dominated by white supremacists to expose your ideas to a diverse audience.
- mlrtime 6mo ago"...and we win by putting our time, skills, and members’ support where they will have the most impact. Right now, that means Bluesky, Mastodon, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube" So pretty much all major sites except X. They are saying LinkedIn is more important to reach people than X, really?
- nerevarthelame 6mo agoOn average, they're getting <9,000 views per post on X. With 100 - 150K followers on both Bluesky and Mastodon, I'd expect their impressions to beat those X numbers. But as they say in the article, their reason for leaving isn't solely the low impressions. It's the low impressions, plus "Musk fired the entire human rights team and laid off staffers in countries where the company previously fought off censorship demands from repressive regimes," plus X's unwillingness to give users more control, consider end-to-end DM encryption, or offer transparent moderation.
- Ferret7446 6mo agoSo the real reason is Musk, hidden amongst some platitudes to make the political motivation less obvious.
- idiotsecant 6mo agoIts wild that we've gotten to the point that 'allows tyrants to silence users on their platform' is no longer something we're allowed to dislike without it being a 'political' stance. Some time in the last 30 years acting like a reasonable and decent human being became a political statement.
- hacker161 6mo ago[flagged]
- mlrtime 6mo agoThis is BS to be honest, they don't like Musk, which is ok, I have no problem with that. And they are reconstructing a reason to leave. Musk fired 90+% of Twitter, not just the human rights team.
- lynndotpy 6mo agoYou can just look at the numbers. They're seeing 15x more engagement on BlueSky, and even more engagement on Mastodon compared to X: X post: 124 comments, 79 reblogs, and 337 likes BlueSky post: 245 comments, 1400 reblogs, and 6.2K likes Mastodon post: 403 reposts, 458 likes There's more ROI posting on BlueSky or Mastodon, even ignoring the fact that BlueSky and Mastodon are projects clearly more aligned with internet freedom than X is. (edited for clarity)
- philistine 6mo agoAnd the EFF is also looking at conversion rates for those views. Are you convinced that the Elon-pilled still on X are interested in donations to the EFF compared with the weirdos on Mastodon?
- herewulf 6mo agoThis is on point but someone is taking offense by being called a "weirdo" (thus the down votes, I think). Yes, we are weirdos on alternate social media, just like we are weirdos who use Linux, Emacs, write Lisp, etc.. It's weird, i.e.: Unusual. "Geek" might have been a better term to use though. Geeks and weirdos donate to EFF. :)
- poisonarena 6mo agocant they just copy an paste the same messages? like are they trying to manage critical 'seconds' and the eff?
- 93po 6mo agoThat's why this is clearly a political jab and not a real decision.
- idiotsecant 6mo agoIf there is an organization who should be promoting federated, decentralized social media services over centralized robber baron engagement factories more than the EFF, I don't know who it would be. Its not political to prefer open systems.
- archagon 6mo agoWell, perhaps it's time to reconsider your perception of Bluesky and Mastodon.
- theshackleford 6mo ago> Something isn't adding up. Yes, it’s your inability to do even the most basic verification of the data underlying your understanding before making claims.
- happosai 6mo agoThe reason to leave ex-twitter and the reason to keep using lesser platforms may not be the same reason. Probably the reason EFF keeps using mastodon/bluesky is not for reach, but to support federated platforms. As an activist organization EFF needs reach people, but also it needs to show people alternatives to surveillance capitalism exist and encourage their use.
- riffraff 6mo agoBluesky and mastodon are the direction the EFF would like the internet to take, so their presence there is not tied to effectiveness in the same way.
- SirMaster 6mo agoWorth the time? Can you not just use some automation or tool to post your stuff to multiple platforms including X? I find it really hard to believe that even with lower views on X than the past, that it's literally not worth the tiny about of effort to get their messages posted there.
- gonzobonzo 6mo agoI 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.
- kakacik 6mo agoAre likes some ultimate metric? What kind of person of target audience keeps liking any post of anything that pops up? No and no obviously, they dont target some desperate addicted teens
- nickvec 6mo agoLikes are obviously correlated with the number of views a post gets. I am not sure what point you are trying to make.
- fnordian_slip 6mo agoThat assumption is only true if there is no manipulation of likes. I believe that the presence of bot farms has been extensively documented by now, which should disprove the usefulness of likes on any social media platform nowadays.
- unixhero 6mo agoI for one never understood github stars Like I don't care about stars at all as a consumer as a developer nor as a repository owner.
- thephyber 6mo agoYou are making lots of assumptions when evaluating GitHub projects that you aren’t writing here. GH stars can indicate: which of many forks of a repo might be the most active, which of many projects in a category might be the most used/trusted, the growth trajectory of a projects (stars over time).
- jasonmp85 6mo ago[dead]
- rconti 6mo agoNobody who's not terminally online ever used Twitter.
- cosmic_cheese 6mo agoI was about to say, Twitter has long been one of the largest collections of terminally online people and that's only gotten worse as various groups have abandoned the platform and social media as a whole has seen a decline. Most people who have a life spend their time elsewhere on the web or don't participate in social media at all.
- throwawaypath 6mo agoNobody who's not terminally online ever used BlueSky.
- bigyabai 6mo agoI don't know any X user that I wouldn't describe as "terminally online" and the same goes for the Twitter days too.
- ethersteeds 6mo agoDo regular people that aren't terminally online use X? I don't know any.
- mghackerlady 6mo agonot anymore. People are acting like they're leaving everything and moving to bluesky or fedi when in reality they already exist there and many other places and are simply leaving the braindead one
- loeg 6mo agoSomething like 20% of Americans use Twitter.
- jappgar 6mo agoCase in point
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- empath75 6mo ago> Yeah, somewhere where regular people that aren't terminally online won't ever have the chance to see it. You think those people are on X?
- dylan604 6mo agoBased on what they are seeing, nobody is seeing their posts on X either. That's the point. Did you miss it?
- solid_fuel 6mo agoThe post was longer than 280 characters, and is therefore invisible to this average internet user. Apparently.
- jeltz 6mo agoThe few people who were not terminally online left Twitter around the time it was renamed.
- throwawaypath 6mo agoThe most terminally online people left Twitter for BlueSky.
- watwut 6mo agoEven if that was true, like so what? Why would anyone care? They are happier over there, so?
- throwawaypath 6mo ago[flagged]
- throwawaypath 6mo ago>Even if that was true It is true.
- hacker161 6mo ago*Normal people who don’t want to hang around in a Nazi hellhole
- throwawaypath 6mo ago[flagged]
- throwawaypath 6mo agoTwitter: Normal people who don’t want to hang around in a Commie hellhole BlueSky: Normal people who don’t want to hang around in a Nazi hellhole
- lynndotpy 6mo ago> X, for better or worse, gets you eyes, more so than any other alternative social media. This is not true at all, and it's a silly statement. X isn't mainstream anymore, and the people who think it is are simply stuck in a bubble. I suspect you might be one of the "terminally online people" you're denigrating as not "regular people". X's MAU is in the ballpark as Quora or Pinterest. "Pinterest gets you more eyes than any alternative social media" is a more defensible statement. It's not even in the top 10. It's not 2010 any more, people are on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. If you read the rest of the post, they cite Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok (which have 6x to 3x as many users), and they cite that their posts on X are getting only 3% the engagement they saw in 2018. By their numbers, they are not getting "eyes" on X. Just to compare, their X post has 124 comments, 79 reblogs, and 337 likes, while their BlueSky post has 245 comments, 1400 reblogs, and 6.2K likes. Even their Mastodon post is getting more engagement than on X. That's over 15x better ROI posting to BlueSky than on X.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- Levitz 6mo ago>This is not true at all, and it's a silly statement. X isn't mainstream anymore, and the people who think it is are simply stuck in a bubble Used by 20% of adults, of course it's mainstream, everyone knows what it is, it regularly gets quoted on TV, you are looking outside from the bubble, not at the bubble
- catcowcostume 6mo agoCan you link a source to that 20% of adults figure? I cannot believe 1 billion people use Twitter
- pmdr 6mo ago> This is not true at all, and it's a silly statement. X isn't mainstream anymore, and the people who think it is are simply stuck in a bubble. Most organizations have an X account and announce things there because people actually see it. Most prominent political figures are there as well. > I suspect you might be one of the "terminally online people" Depends on what that means for you. For me it means people that can't stop posting and commenting, that have made social media their life. I don't qualify for that. > you're denigrating as not "regular people". Not really denigrating, it's more like people that are on alternative social media might already be more conscious about what the EFF is and does, so they're the ones that need it the least.
- stephen_g 6mo agoI stoped using Twitter (around when it was changing to be X) because 60-70% of the accounts I cared about left the platform. More and more people will look elsewhere as more organisations and people who aren’t into Musk’s politics leave.
- Theodores 6mo agoI think that a lot of people unconsciously quit Twitter/X due to friction/hassle. By analogy, think of news websites that are generally paywalled, take ages to load and only offer 'USAID propaganda'. A lot of people just won't open a link to the New York Times and their ilk because of this friction. You might as well get the same story elsewhere. Twitter/X has become similarly 'meh', perhaps even more so. A 'tweet' is measured in characters, originally SMS message length, now biglier, but still small. In theory you could get a feature length article on the NYT-style bloated news websites, so the friction could be worth the effort - in theory. But for a tweet? Why bother, particularly if it wants you to provide your age and other details that shouldn't be necessary, but marketing dictates otherwise. As for Musk and his politics, I don't think Bezos is any better, as for Rupert Murdoch and the other press barons, they are equally odious. Yet, if the product is any good, I can overlook such awkward realities to a certain extent. If Amazon can get me that vital part I need tomorrow rather than 'in twenty eight days', then take my money! I am a moderately heavy user of Telegram as I prefer to get curated news from there. If bad things are happening, I want to get my news from the natives, not from the 'Epstein' empire. Much is cross posted to X but much is not. All considered, nothing beats Telegram, particularly as far as friction is concerned, it makes X, WhatsApp, Instagram and much else seem to have a dated user interface. IMHO, EFF need to embrace Telegram, not least because it reaches people in parts of the world where the EFF message resonates.
- FireInsight 6mo ago> Yeah, somewhere where regular people that aren't terminally online won't ever have the chance to see it. Honestly the first time I read this I thought you meant to say "will have the chance", because I don't know of any normal people that used Xitter in years. Most are now just on Instagram. Then again, my generation and geographical locatin might have something to do with that.
- anigbrowl 6mo agoNot if you're shadowbanned
- mayneack 6mo agoHalf this post is about how few people they're reaching on X.
- mrguyorama 6mo ago>Yeah, somewhere where regular people that aren't terminally online won't ever have the chance to see it. The entire point of microblogging platforms like twitter is for you to be terminally online. What the heck else do you call the service that invented "You can SMS your updates from wherever, and it will be sent out to all your followers"? Having to "Keep up" like that is what being terminally online is
- willdr 6mo agoWhat are you talking about? X is exclusively the domain of terminally-online people.
- throwawaypath 6mo ago[flagged]
- saulapremium 6mo agoIt's funny how excited you are about BlueSky, a place that I would imagine you don't go? But somehow you know all about it?
- throwawaypath 6mo ago>It's funny how excited you are about BlueSky Nowhere did I state I'm excited about BkueSky. >a place that I would imagine you don't go? I view BlueSky posts sporadically, including posts submitted here on HN. >But somehow you know all about it? I did not claim that I "know all about it."
- idiotsecant 6mo ago'Terminally online is when you post about things I don't like'
- throwawaypath 6mo ago[flagged]
- throwawaypath 6mo ago'Anyone right of Mao is a Nazi'
- holoduke 6mo agoNo that's reddit, Facebook, insta and TikTok.
- jrflowers 6mo agoI love getting on the computer to write stuff like “Twitter is the only website where people aren’t terminally online”
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]