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>Our presence on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok is not an endorsement [...] We stay because the people on those platforms deserve access to informatio

>Our presence on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok is not an endorsement [...] We stay because the people on those platforms deserve access to information, too. We stay because some of our most-read posts are the ones criticizing the very platform we're posting on. We stay because the fewer steps between you and the resources you need to protect yourself, the better. Does this not apply to X users?

traderj0e 6mo ago
[flagged]
- koshergweilo 6mo ago
  You clearly didn't read the article closely enough. The first header is "The Numbers Aren’t Working Out." If it was about the audience, they would have switched stopped earlier.
  - traderj0e 6mo ago
    [flagged]
    - dominicq 6mo ago
      I agree with you. It's clear that they're leaving X because "X bad", but they don't want to say it that way. I don't know if X is or isn't bad, but it seems pretty mainstream and a good representation of a lot of society, both US and international, so for an org that apparently cares for the online rights of people, it feels silly to leave a platform where there are - people. (and this is coming from someone who doesn't use X or social media in general)
      - basisword 6mo ago
        It is a poor representation of society internationally. Twitter has never been a big platform outside the US (and Japan I believe). It's irrelevant most other places.
        nailer 6mo ago
        It’s pretty relevant in the UK and globally in tech too.
    - PunchyHamster 6mo ago
      [flagged]
      - traderj0e 6mo ago
        [flagged]
  - manwds 6mo ago
    [dead]
  - inquirerGeneral 6mo ago
    [dead]
  - lancewiggs 6mo ago
    Those numbers are the real news here - that's a brutal drop in traffic. Are other organisations seeing the same?
- TiredGuy 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  - traderj0e 6mo ago
    Well, I'm not discouraged at least. The entire article probably shouldn't even be on HN so whatever
    - drfloyd51 6mo ago
      I enjoyed the article. And it gave me a different perspective about how sometimes you have to go to where the people are to get your message out to people that they should leave. I for one, was happy the article was on HN.
  - slg 6mo ago
    It's funny that the (seemingly) right leaning people in this thread are criticizing the EFF for leaving Twitter while also simultaneously saying they will leave HN for the exact same reason, just "on the opposite side of the political spectrum".
    - refurb 6mo ago
      You don’t see a difference between an organization and an individual?
      - slg 6mo ago
        Not in this instance. People don't stop being people when they join an organization. If we can recognize that getting ignored, suppressed, or met with hostility "discourages people from posting", why can't we recognize that it can also discourage organizations from posting?
        mlrtime 6mo ago
        The same thing happens, you descend into a echo chamber of people who already agree with you.
phillipcarter 6mo ago
The problem they're not talking about is that for all the X users they could potentially help, their messages will be actively suppressed by the platform owner. Nate Silver, famously popular (...lol) with the online left, made a post about this recently: https://www.natesilver.net/p/social-media-has-become-a-freak-show https://www.natesilver.net/p/social-media-has-become-a-freak... EFF is, politically, left wing.
- ecshafer 6mo ago
  EFF used to stand for a cause that was neither left nor right.
  - tailscaler2026 6mo ago
    EFF still does. MAGA is the one who decided ideas like freedom of expression, an expectation of privacy, and holding governments accountable were woke liberal concepts.
    - 833 6mo ago
      That is incredible rewriting of history.
      - CursedSilicon 6mo ago
        How? He's "investigating" CNN right now for...something? Something about them reporting on the Iran war
      - saulapremium 6mo ago
        No, that is the obvious and clear truth. MAGA has done a pretty good job at making the opposite appear true, though.
    - thaumasiotes 6mo ago
      True as stated, but if you generalize the statement to "enemy concepts", who decided that? For example, where did the term "freeze peach" come from?
hn_throwaway_99 6mo ago
[dead]
jmull 6mo ago
Just above that they explain the tradeoffs leading them to leave twitter. Basically, they can't reach X users on X.
- wesleywt 6mo ago
  Do you really need to reach users on X. It is filter for a specific type of user who don't share the ideals of the EFF. And racists.
spopejoy 6mo ago
The story behind the numbers they present clearly demonstrates that X is censoring/shadowbanning them. Going from 600MM to 13MM impressions/yr -- losing 98% of their impressions! -- is no accident but clearly Musk's thumb on the scale. Imagine what this means if you are trying to gauge impact of a post. Remember, X is giving them zero information about who they're preventing from seeing it. Impressions is the main datapoint so if you can't figure out why you've lost 98% of your impact, how on earth are you going to evaluate it vs other platforms? And yes, each platform has a cost. There's a LOT more to social strategy than just "copy and paste this announce to every platform".
- pseudohadamard 6mo ago
  It's not necessarily shadowbanning (although it could well be), given that it's been turned into a cesspit where huge numbers of users left and the ones still there are probably not the demographic that would engage with the EFF, it could just be a natural consequence of Musk's wrecking it.
  - dsr_ 6mo ago
    Same result, either way.
- junofan 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  - hn_user82179 6mo ago
    > I don’t think Elon Musk personally has to put his finger on any scale. I thought EFF would be his thing too, no? Not sure why you would say that, I know he’s branded himself as a tech guy but beyond that nothing about the EFF seems to match his values. The EFF tried to sue him last year too: https://www.eff.org/press/releases/judge-rejects-governments-attempt-dismiss-eff-lawsuit-against-opm-doge-and-musk https://www.eff.org/press/releases/judge-rejects-governments...
    - 6mo ago
tstrimple 6mo ago
No it doesn't. Anyone sticking with X at this point is ideologically compromised. There's no reason even trying to reach them. They are hopeless.
pbreit 6mo ago
"X post today receives less than 3% of the views a single tweet delivered seven years ago" Does anyone believe this?
- vintermann 6mo ago
  It comes from X's own metrics, why would they lie about it?
lenkite 6mo ago
I don't use Facebook, Instagram & Tiktok. But I do use X, since there the censoring is least on X amongst all those platforms.
- silexia 6mo ago
  Exactly! I love the freedom of speech, and Community Notes are the best possible way to deal with misinformation.

traderj0e 6mo ago

[flagged]

koshergweilo 6mo ago
You clearly didn't read the article closely enough. The first header is "The Numbers Aren’t Working Out." If it was about the audience, they would have switched stopped earlier.
- traderj0e 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  - dominicq 6mo ago
    I agree with you. It's clear that they're leaving X because "X bad", but they don't want to say it that way. I don't know if X is or isn't bad, but it seems pretty mainstream and a good representation of a lot of society, both US and international, so for an org that apparently cares for the online rights of people, it feels silly to leave a platform where there are - people. (and this is coming from someone who doesn't use X or social media in general)
    - basisword 6mo ago
      It is a poor representation of society internationally. Twitter has never been a big platform outside the US (and Japan I believe). It's irrelevant most other places.
      - nailer 6mo ago
        It’s pretty relevant in the UK and globally in tech too.
  - PunchyHamster 6mo ago
    [flagged]
    - traderj0e 6mo ago
      [flagged]
- manwds 6mo ago
  [dead]
- inquirerGeneral 6mo ago
  [dead]
- lancewiggs 6mo ago
  Those numbers are the real news here - that's a brutal drop in traffic. Are other organisations seeing the same?
TiredGuy 6mo ago
[flagged]
- traderj0e 6mo ago
  Well, I'm not discouraged at least. The entire article probably shouldn't even be on HN so whatever
  - drfloyd51 6mo ago
    I enjoyed the article. And it gave me a different perspective about how sometimes you have to go to where the people are to get your message out to people that they should leave. I for one, was happy the article was on HN.
- slg 6mo ago
  It's funny that the (seemingly) right leaning people in this thread are criticizing the EFF for leaving Twitter while also simultaneously saying they will leave HN for the exact same reason, just "on the opposite side of the political spectrum".
  - refurb 6mo ago
    You don’t see a difference between an organization and an individual?
    - slg 6mo ago
      Not in this instance. People don't stop being people when they join an organization. If we can recognize that getting ignored, suppressed, or met with hostility "discourages people from posting", why can't we recognize that it can also discourage organizations from posting?
      - mlrtime 6mo ago
        The same thing happens, you descend into a echo chamber of people who already agree with you.

phillipcarter 6mo ago

The problem they're not talking about is that for all the X users they could potentially help, their messages will be actively suppressed by the platform owner. Nate Silver, famously popular (...lol) with the online left, made a post about this recently: https://www.natesilver.net/p/social-media-has-become-a-freak-show https://www.natesilver.net/p/social-media-has-become-a-freak... EFF is, politically, left wing.

ecshafer 6mo ago
EFF used to stand for a cause that was neither left nor right.
- tailscaler2026 6mo ago
  EFF still does. MAGA is the one who decided ideas like freedom of expression, an expectation of privacy, and holding governments accountable were woke liberal concepts.
  - 833 6mo ago
    That is incredible rewriting of history.
    - CursedSilicon 6mo ago
      How? He's "investigating" CNN right now for...something? Something about them reporting on the Iran war
    - saulapremium 6mo ago
      No, that is the obvious and clear truth. MAGA has done a pretty good job at making the opposite appear true, though.
  - thaumasiotes 6mo ago
    True as stated, but if you generalize the statement to "enemy concepts", who decided that? For example, where did the term "freeze peach" come from?

hn_throwaway_99 6mo ago

[dead]

jmull 6mo ago

Just above that they explain the tradeoffs leading them to leave twitter. Basically, they can't reach X users on X.

wesleywt 6mo ago
Do you really need to reach users on X. It is filter for a specific type of user who don't share the ideals of the EFF. And racists.

spopejoy 6mo ago

The story behind the numbers they present clearly demonstrates that X is censoring/shadowbanning them. Going from 600MM to 13MM impressions/yr -- losing 98% of their impressions! -- is no accident but clearly Musk's thumb on the scale. Imagine what this means if you are trying to gauge impact of a post. Remember, X is giving them zero information about who they're preventing from seeing it. Impressions is the main datapoint so if you can't figure out why you've lost 98% of your impact, how on earth are you going to evaluate it vs other platforms? And yes, each platform has a cost. There's a LOT more to social strategy than just "copy and paste this announce to every platform".

pseudohadamard 6mo ago
It's not necessarily shadowbanning (although it could well be), given that it's been turned into a cesspit where huge numbers of users left and the ones still there are probably not the demographic that would engage with the EFF, it could just be a natural consequence of Musk's wrecking it.
- dsr_ 6mo ago
  Same result, either way.
junofan 6mo ago
[flagged]
- hn_user82179 6mo ago
  > I don’t think Elon Musk personally has to put his finger on any scale. I thought EFF would be his thing too, no? Not sure why you would say that, I know he’s branded himself as a tech guy but beyond that nothing about the EFF seems to match his values. The EFF tried to sue him last year too: https://www.eff.org/press/releases/judge-rejects-governments-attempt-dismiss-eff-lawsuit-against-opm-doge-and-musk https://www.eff.org/press/releases/judge-rejects-governments...
  - 6mo ago

tstrimple 6mo ago

No it doesn't. Anyone sticking with X at this point is ideologically compromised. There's no reason even trying to reach them. They are hopeless.

pbreit 6mo ago

"X post today receives less than 3% of the views a single tweet delivered seven years ago" Does anyone believe this?

vintermann 6mo ago
It comes from X's own metrics, why would they lie about it?

lenkite 6mo ago

I don't use Facebook, Instagram & Tiktok. But I do use X, since there the censoring is least on X amongst all those platforms.

silexia 6mo ago
Exactly! I love the freedom of speech, and Community Notes are the best possible way to deal with misinformation.