Overdue - more national media needs to take this step.
The US presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.
It’s not like they weren’t warned though.
Perhaps they’ll start using the fediverse…
I’ve had some first hand experience of the Guardians IT systems and they can barely find their arse with both hands
If twitter users think it’s barely tolerable now, they should imagine how bad it’ll get once Trump actually takes office. They need to switch TODAY.
There are, however, also those who simply defer to the powerful — that assume that “this much money can’t be wrong,” even if said money has been wrong repeatedly to the point that there’s an entire website about it. They are the people that look at the current crop of powerful tech companies that have failed to deliver any truly meaningful innovation in years and coo like newborn babes. Look at the coverage of Sam Altman from the last year — you know, the guy who has spent years lying about what artificial intelligence can do — and tell me why every single thought he has must be uncritically cataloged, his every decision applauded, his every claim trumpeted as certain, his brittle company’s obvious problems apologized for and readers reassured of his obvious victory.
Nowhere is this more obvious right now than in The Guardian’s nonsensical decision to abandon Twitter, decrying how “X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse” mere weeks after printing, bereft of context, Elon Musk’s ridiculous lies about his plans for cybertaxis. There is little moral quality to leaving X if your outlet continues to act as a stenographer for its leader, and this in fact suggests a lack of any real interest in change or progress, just the paper tiger of norms and values that will only end up depriving people of good journalism.
Only took them the regime change of a major Western country to notice that their favourite corporate platform might be just a tad compromised.
Does not using Twitter actually require an explanation?
I guess it does…but only when you’re two years late to quit 🤷♂️
Do like the BBC and spin up your own mastodon instance, Guardian.
3 whole active users…
All official BBC accounts, yes. It has locked signups.
And then they, too, can be defederated by salty Mastodon admins. At least I saw a lot of instances talk of defederating BBC when I still was trying to enjoy Mastodon.
Did they say why?
I forget the exact reasons but I believe it was due to a perceived bias. I don’t read BBC so can’t comment but they described it similarly to how a liberal would describe Fox News.
looks dead to me. last post was in july. I agree with the sentiment however.
I wish more companies and government organisations did this.
Gives them full control, gives everyone ability to subscribe. Win-Win.
I really wish fire departments would do this.
I’m not giving Fascist Musk and Zuckernazi more power by creating an account to view whether my house is going to burn down from the growing wave of wildfires.
