this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2026
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589
After more than 15 years on the platform formerly known as Twitter, Cambridge is leaving X (www.bostonglobe.com)
submitted 5 months ago by ardi60@reddthat.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] cabbage@piefed.social 173 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

“I don’t want residents to think we’re giving a stamp of approval to Instagram and Facebook and Snapchat and all their oligarch owners,” said City Councilor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler at Monday’s meeting. “There’s no ethical social media companies under capitalism,” he said. “We can try to use the ones that are the least bad and reach the most Cambridge residents.”

Somebody tell this guy about Mastodon.

Also worth noting that this article is about the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, not Cambridge, England nor the University of Cambridge. They still apparently thrive in the gutter.

[–] morto@piefed.social 50 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Judging by the quote, they're likely going to bluesky. They will say that mastodon has a too restricted reach. It's like a pattern. Every time I see someone coming with that "there's no ethical [thing] under capitalism", instead of promoting the anticapitalist things or the most ethical choices, they use the phrase to justify using another capitalist thing.

[–] baatliwala@lemmy.world 28 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Idk why they can't use both, any big organisation has a social media team managing multiple handles

[–] morto@piefed.social 7 points 5 months ago

Institutions don't want to or simply don't care. Anything else said is just an excuse to give a good-looking response

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

There's also various services for posting to multiple places

[–] Specter@piefed.social 11 points 5 months ago

Right.

“We hate capitalist oligarchs which is why we are moving to another oligarch-owned platform.”

It’s all so tiresome.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 20 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Somebody tell this guy about Mastodon.

The phone number for his executive assistant is 617-349-4280.

https://www.cambridgema.gov/Departments/citycouncil/members/jivansobrinhowheeler

[–] jefferyjefferson@lemmy.org 2 points 5 months ago

These people are genuinely too stupid to choose Mastodon.

[–] arcine@jlai.lu 1 points 5 months ago

Some people have trouble conceiving of social media that is not ran by a company.

[–] spectrums_coherence@piefed.social 54 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

BTW, there is a very strong Boston/Cambridge/Somerville community on mastodon, there is a entire instance for it: https://better.boston/explore

Mayor Wu is on there @wutrain@better.boston but not posting much these days.

There are also many people on other instances, like transport or OSS instance, as many prominent OSS contributor lives in that area.

[–] wjs018@piefed.social 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for pointing this out. I am not that active on masto, but I am from the Boston area, so this might be the kick I need to check out that side of the fediverse. I lived in Somerville for 10 years before more recently moving to the burbs. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else in this country these days.

[–] spectrums_coherence@piefed.social 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Then this post should interest you: https://social.growyourown.services/@FediFollows/112419076551165888 :)

And my absolute favorite is @frenchtoast@better.boston

[–] speedythefirst@lemmy.zip 13 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Good. I'm curious to see where they land. Most likely Bluesky, but I've heard of some local governments moving to Fediverse instances, whether they're Mastodon or local.

[–] porcoesphino@mander.xyz 6 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Oh? Any chance you can point to something about these local governments hosting fediverse instances? I just did a quick search but didn't see anything

[–] livligkinkajou@slrpnk.net 21 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

From the top of my head, there are:

City of Amsterdam https://social.amsterdam.nl/
Baden-Württemberg https://xn--baw-joa.social/
Netherlands https://social.overheid.nl/
Germany https://social.bund.de/
France https://social.numerique.gouv.fr/
EU Commission https://ec.social-network.europa.eu/

Switzerland had a pilot project, but I don't know what happened to it

I'm pretty sure there are more local governments with their own instances or plans to do it , specially after all the digital sovereignty discourse got some boost to it

[–] spectrums_coherence@piefed.social 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

There are several non-profit had their own instance, like ACM. I recall Mozilla used to do, but I am not sure if they still does.

[–] teyrnon@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

How expensive is it to have your own instance?

[–] spectrums_coherence@piefed.social 8 points 5 months ago

I don't think it is terribly expensive, a lot of (somewhat large) domain specific academic instances are maintained by grad students with donation from academics. As far as I know, many of them are in good financial standing.

[–] speedythefirst@lemmy.zip 3 points 5 months ago

I could have sworn I watched a video by FediHost about that, but I either can't find it or it never existed in the first place. I have seen some places move to Mastodon, so I edited my initial comment to be more accurate to my current info. Sorry!

[–] Gamechanger@slrpnk.net 12 points 5 months ago

Better late than never! But man, are they late...

[–] Etterra@discuss.online 11 points 5 months ago

No it's still known as Twitter, despite changing it's name to X.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 6 points 5 months ago

It's been 2 years and we still recognize [the name] Twitter better than X

[–] maplesaga@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Its interesting to see the same people calling for governmental social media censorship also calling for Trump to stop lying to them. Do they realize he is part of the government, or that he will be the one to control it?

[–] MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Paywall

[–] cabbage@piefed.social 3 points 5 months ago

If you have a reading mode in your browser it works well on that site. :)

[–] teyrnon@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago

Cambridge is actually pretty cool in some ways. They put out a lot of research on small farming, ways for people to get into the business. Maple syrup, mushrooms, crops.

They also do the israel thing so they aren't perfect.

[–] Jhex@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

Absolutely ridiculous this is not an article from a few years back...