On to Wayland I guess.
this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2026
1157 points (99.2% liked)
Technology
83677 readers
4060 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
To the people saying things like "what took you so long", I think you're missing the point. They even address this in the post:
EFF exists to protect people’s digital rights. Not just the people who already value our work, have opted out of surveillance, or have already migrated to the fediverse. The people who need us most are often the ones most embedded in the walled gardens of the mainstream platforms and subjected to their corporate surveillance.
When the ship is sinking, there's some value in someone staying behind to help people get off. That's not the same as generating value for Shitter.
Yeah, it's not a trivial problem to solve either, especially if platforms censor mentions of decentralized alternatives.
However, it's hard for the oligarchs to censor the fact that an organization like EFF exists, and hopefully someone clicks on one of their posts and reads something on their blog about decentralized alternatives.
As for why they did decide to leave now, they explain that their posts are being viewed by significantly less people now than in the past, so there is basically nobody left to help off the sinking ship any more.
The traffic seems well ranked still. Maybe concerns of algorithmic censorship? As an example, X.com now promotes posts from premium users, and then has an extra promotion mode for premium+ users. (Normal users are now much less visible than premium users)
Ppl on Lemmy don't get the preaching to the choir is not how you grow
People leaving Twitter now is not very impressive. Less "seeing the light" and more "Trumpgret".
I'll remind you that the Debian project left Twitter over a year ago. So the EFF isn't as fast moving or comfortable with change like ... Debian.
From their mastodon:
EFF exists to protect people's digital rights. Not just the people who already value our work, have opted out of surveillance, or have already migrated to the fediverse. The people who need us most are often the ones most embedded in the walled gardens of the mainstream platforms
There are plenty of mainstream platforms to reach such people on that aren't owned by (openly) Nazi billionaires.
Hence why this article is about them leaving the openly Nazi billionaire's platform while remaining on other platforms that are mainstream and still provide a lot of reach :)
Yah, it's the EFF, they get significant latitude from their history.
As they should.
A non-profit that fights daily for our electronic freedoms can leave X whenever they damn well please. They decided today was that day and I am perfectly fine with that.
EFF is one of the orgs I often donate to.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
Name one single mainstream (i.e. >10 million users) platform that isn't owned by a nazi pedophile billionaire.
load more comments
(6 replies)
load more comments
(4 replies)
I will say that double posting is a completely reasonable solution. More orgs should be the gateway where they can be seen, and have the visibility of the big platforms, but they also offer Mastodon as an alternative. If enough orgs do that, it enables people to just... move.
It's hard for users to move when 75% of their content is exclusive to X. And it's hard for orgs to move when 75% of the users are on X. Double posting allows this to move to 10% X exclusive content, 60% content that's available everywhere, and 10% exclusive to open platforms. After the orgs move the content, it's so much easier for users to move, and after the users move, it's easier for the orgs to move.
This should be a cooperative thing. And afaik it doesn't take that much effort to post the content to two places.
That's why people have found out recently that existing on legacy and new way better platforms is good way to get accustomed to new ones. Along with to keep bringing people in to do the same of having one foot on both sides
load more comments
(3 replies)
This is not a contest to be holier than thou. It's a numbers game.
EFF stayed on Twitter because it has a larger audience and that means a larger portion of people will see their messaging. In fact, I would argue that the people that are still on Twitter are the ones most in need of seeing those messages. The people that care about what Debian is posting are almost certainly already on Mastadon.
I feel like the EFF's messaging is just not going to get through to anyone still on Twitter.
Remember, it's not a fair forum; it's an algorithm. And it's not going to show the EFF to users who need to see it.
I feel like the EFF’s messaging is just not going to get through to anyone still on Twitter.
The problem is that the fundamental catch-22 of social networks is that the content and the users reinforce each other. Self-hating/regretting Twitter/X users exist, but they are there because there are network effects, including organizations who still also use it, they are not willing to give up. Similar organizations are there because the users are still there. And yes, I do think they still see the people they want because of follows/subscriptions, even if alt-right fascism is also being thrown into their feed by the algorithm.
It sucks so many people haven't left yet, but that's why every choice to leave is worth celebrating, because it breaks down the long-term network effects every time, even at the cost of short-term value to the users or orgs.
To illustrate what I mean more clearly, look at the top comments/replies for the NASA Artemis posts, as an example.
...It's basically all conspiracy theorists, and government skeptics.
Twitter's focusing the Artemis posts on them because it's what they want to see, and most engaging for them.
In the EFF's case, I'm not just talking about Musk's influence. The algorithm will only show the EFF to users who would be highly engaged by it. E.g., angry skeptics who wouldn't be swayed by the EFF anyway, or fans who already agree with the EFF. It's literally not going to show the EFF to people who need to see it, as Twitter's metrics would show it as unengaging.
This is the "false image" I keep trying to dispel. Twitter is less and less an "even spread" of exposure like people think it is, like it sort of used to be, more-and-more a hyper focused bubble of what you want to hear, and only what you want to hear. All the changes Musk is making are amplifying that. Maybe that's fine for some orgs, but there's no point in the EFF staying in that kind of environment, regardless of ethics.
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
Did it though? EFF says that the number of impressions their content received is why they left:
Those [2018] tweets garnered somewhere between 50 and 100 million impressions per month.
Then
Last year, our 1,500 posts earned roughly 13 million impressions for the entire year. To put it bluntly, an X post today receives less than 3% of the views a single tweet delivered seven years ago.
But, I wonder what the real numbers actually are. Do we think Elon is honestly reporting real numbers to people? And, of the "impressions" that are real, how many of those are actually from bots rather than actual human users?
IMO, one of the biggest tricks Elon has managed to pull with Twitter is to convince celebrities and brands that it's still a thriving site full of other people, leading to them sticking around because supposedly no other site gets as much traffic.
load more comments
(1 replies)
I don’t believe in Trumpgret.
Their hearts haven’t changed, they just don’t like being hated.
We are seeing this a lot with podcast/youtube people, like Alex Jones.
It doesn’t matter what they say now, they begged for him to be elected. They chose him and are responsible.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Progress is progress. As any sane people would repeat: perfect is not the enemy of good.
load more comments
(1 replies)
an X post today receives less than 3% of the views a single tweet delivered seven years ago
the town square lmao
"Free speech absolutionist"
*abolitionist
Damn... we all should have known elon can't spell.
Wow, that's late.
What the everliving fuck were they still doing there
How long do you stay on a platform before the outreach to new people is outweighed by implicit support of the platform?
It's a tough call. It is difficult to reach out to outsiders and talk to them but it's the only way to have a conversation with them.
Another reason why they stayed there for years is not only it's one of many channels for which to impart their news about their activities or telling users they have individual right to privacy, with fucking Musk now in charge, their presence sought to challenge that bastard's grip upon social media. Likewise, neither the UN nor Al-Jazeera are yet leaving the platform for the sake of informing the world and the oppressed in general, despite these organizations being opposed to right-wing warmongering, lying, and mafia capitalism, and Musk and those goddamned bots in response trying to harass or reduce their presence.
Progress is progress. As any sane people would repeat: perfect is not the enemy of good.
About fucking time.
I missed the "X" in that title, and read "EFF is leaving the Electronic Freedom Foundation," and was very confused.
load more comments
(3 replies)
ITT: people thinking that people already on the fediverse are the ones that the EFF needs to reach
Well, better late than never.
view more: next ›