Should we ditch twitter?

[Jdsk]

Regarding this earlier post, I booked my bike using WhatsApp last night. It worked exactly the same as twitter.

Many of us prefer Signal to WhatsApp. Similar functionality, possibly better privacy, and having as little as possible to do with Meta, the owners of Facebook.

Jonathan

"Signal vs. WhatsApp: Which One is Good to Use?":
https://privacysavvy.com/security/mobil ... -whatsapp/

"Comparison of cross-platform instant messaging clients":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compariso ... ng_clients

[Nearholmer]

In all this, it seems to me that we need to be conscious of the balance between convenience provided by, and very real harms caused by these big tech platforms, especially when they are in “publisher” mode, when they replicate the behaviours of the (un)free press, amplified a million-fold, and not moderated by regulation to the tiniest extent.

Personally, I’d be willing, happy, delighted even, to see “convenience” rolled-back a fair distance in exchange for a reduction in harms, because much of the convenience is illusory, and the harms to civil society, the mental health of children etc are so substantial.

[Psamathe]

Musk now a climate denier

...
[Musk said] “We still have quite a bit of time … we don’t need to rush ...”

Musk said the main danger of allowing carbon dioxide to build up in the atmosphere was that at some point it will become difficult to breathe, causing “headaches and nausea” to people. This would occur with CO2 at about 1,000 parts per million of the Earth’s atmosphere, more than double the current record-breaking concentrations.
...

Ian

[mattheus]

In all this, it seems to me that we need to be conscious of the balance between convenience provided by, and very real harms caused by these big tech platforms, especially when they are in “publisher” mode, when they replicate the behaviours of the (un)free press, amplified a million-fold, and not moderated by regulation to the tiniest extent.

Personally, I’d be willing, happy, delighted even, to see “convenience” rolled-back a fair distance in exchange for a reduction in harms, because much of the convenience is illusory, and the harms to civil society, the mental health of children etc are so substantial.

I think you're right.

What people forget with Twitter is that pre-Musk* (or perhaps pre-bots too?) it was much less of a cess-pit; OK, there was porn sublty advertised, and you might not like some political views expressed, but it was much more of a fun/free chat-room than the likes of Facebook.
<awaits input from my CUK intellectual betters as to how naive I am/was ... >

* I've used it since 2007. Maybe it was only nice for a few years after that, and being so old I forget how time works ...

[Cugel]

In all this, it seems to me that we need to be conscious of the balance between convenience provided by, and very real harms caused by these big tech platforms, especially when they are in “publisher” mode, when they replicate the behaviours of the (un)free press, amplified a million-fold, and not moderated by regulation to the tiniest extent.

Personally, I’d be willing, happy, delighted even, to see “convenience” rolled-back a fair distance in exchange for a reduction in harms, because much of the convenience is illusory, and the harms to civil society, the mental health of children etc are so substantial.

Indeed.

It's astonishing how much hubris comes into play with this stuff. "I can resist the memetic toxins I read 'cos I'm so intelligent".

Yeh! Of course. :-/

Many of us prefer not to be so intoxicated. They did enough of it to us in skool; and the mass media leaks into our poor wetware no matter how hard we try to just-say-no. "We're gonna get some on us, playing in the dirt".

[Tangled Metal]

He is not American born so cannot be US president.

That's such a blinkered, 20thC view of the world.

That is under US law I believe.

Article II, Section 1, Clause 5:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

• Age: The person must be at least 35 years old

• Citizenship: The person must be a “natural born citizen,” meaning they were either born on American soil or born abroad to American parents. The president cannot become an American citizen through the naturalization process.

• Residency: The person has lived in the U.S. at least 14 years

Elon Musk is a naturalized citizen not US born or born to US parents so ineligible for standing. Perhaps Trump, if he gets into the whitehouse other than as a guest, might get the law changed to allow Musk to make it but unlikely. More likely Vance will take over. He's pretty closely alligned to Trump, now at least. Another opportunist jumping onto Trump coat tails. Only one that is not related directly or through marriage into the family.

[mattheus]

This is the sort of positivity that is there if you look (and used to be the norm, before being swamped by clmite-denying, unrest-stirring bots).
From a positive person:

Jenny Eclair
https://twitter.com/jennyeclair

I’m not inclined to leave twitter - because if all the people who post nice stuff leave - then we are allowing the cess pit people take over - let’s fill this thing with art and books and birds and flowers and jokes etc - let’s swamp it with good stuff - reclaim it
Posted on X · 1 hour ago

[Jdsk]

Lots of different issues here:

Regulatory action
Governments have been far too weak. International co-operation is essential, and we now have a government that may find that easier. The response to the riots will bring this to the sticking point.

Choosing tools
Be aware of both the harvesting of information about you and the broader harmful effects of the organisations. Use DuckDuckGo rather than Google to search, use Signal rather than WhatsApp to message, use Mastodon rather than Twitter...

When you're in a community that uses these tools
Try to persuade them to use less harmful solutions. But this will often fail. In that situation you might be able to get the functionality that you need by using a browser rather than their dedicated program, and an identity that is only used for this purpose. These can dramatically reduce the harvesting of information about you.

In the last week I've seen more people of interest moving to Bluesky than to Mastodon:
https://bsky.social/about
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluesky_(social_network)

Jonathan

[Paulatic]

Stayed away from X a whole week now. What’s happening

[mattheus]

Stayed away from X a whole week now. What’s happening

There's a regular newsletter you can browse:

[Jdsk]

Letter from Breton to Musk.

Thanks for posting.

Looks like a good start.

The Digital Services Act:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Services_Act

"Elon Musk says X will pull operations from Brazil after ‘censorship orders’":
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... k-x-brazil

Jonathan

[Jdsk]

Letter from Breton to Musk.

Thanks for posting.

Looks like a good start.

The Digital Services Act:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Services_Act

"Elon Musk says X will pull operations from Brazil after ‘censorship orders’":
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... k-x-brazil

"Elon Musk’s best move in EU fight may be an eXit":
https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/e ... 024-08-21/

"Royal Society facing calls to expel Elon Musk amid concerns about conduct":
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ut-conduct

Jonathan

[Psamathe]

Interesting how much attention Twitter gets but listening to a podcast today (discussing arrest of Telegram owner in France) and that Telegram is significantly larger (more users) than Twitter prompted me to Google and I found how small Twitter is a big surprise

(as of April 2024 from https://www.statista.com/statistics/272 ... -of-users/)
Twitter pretty low down the list.

Ian

[freeflow]

What right minded person would even consider starting to use twitter (facebook etc etc etc)

[pwa]

What right minded person would even consider starting to use twitter (facebook etc etc etc)

I use Facebook, mainly because it is where the dog breeder we got our whippet from has a group of fellow owners who chat, share pictures and discuss issues. I want to be in the group and got no say in where it is.