Petition calls to ban Elon Musk's X in Europe
This petition introduces the campaign for the ban of Elon Musk's social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) in the European Union.
Crossposting here as I consider X a threat to both privacy and freedom
"I consider X a threat to both privacy and freedom."
*uses change.org instead of the EU mechanism to submit petitions to the parliament...
This has to have been made by an American living in Europe.
I don't know
Wouldn't that enable an angle of "martyr for freedom of speech"?
And while I agree that it stopped being what it was and we can't rely on it anymore, wouldn't that separate EU from the rest of the world given current market share?
In my opinion: abandon - yes. Ban - no
Abandon would be the best approach. A ban would just make people want to use it more.
When twitter (now formally know as "X") was first a thing, the only reason I joined was because private business, city services, and news agencies became a little easier to follow in one unified location. It also made it easier to reach them with quick tweets.
Maybe the solution is to put a restriction on business, news agencies, and government services from using it?
Maybe the solution is to put a restriction on business, news agencies, and government services from using it?
But that opens another can of worms. A precedence for a governing body to say which platforms can be used for reaching your audience. I'm afraid the change will have to come from the bottom
If anything, I'd phrase it "public service messaging has to operate on platforms which don't require an account to read". But that doesn't solve the problem of general culture on the service
how dare you suggest a cure instead of a bandaid?!
Initially thought the post was an attempt on a joke. But yes, what would banning prove?
X might be a threat to privacy and freedom but doesn't Facebook, Microsoft and others do the same. It looks like a poorly developed plan.
in my opinion facebook and microsoft are worse because you can't optionally avoid them. no matter what you do, you're still paying for microsoft products through your taxes with money that should go into domestic development. facebook is so insideous that in some countries it is the de-facto internet (because it's free to use without a paid internet plan/subscription); all hobby communities that i'm aware of now exclusively live on facebook, and forget your grandma having any other means of contact than through facebook messenger and certain companies and services offer facebook messenger only live support. and as a business owner? you don't have a choice on the matter, facebook (and google) is the only means to advertise nowadays that have actual measurable results on the campaign budget.
twitter? unless you're a creative or a connoisseur of creatives, it actually has a lot less relevance than the current drama suggests, otherwise the big alternative platforms wouldn't have actual relevance and upwards mobility, which they currently do.
In my opinion: abandon - yes. Ban - no
Perhaps it is time to bring this old post of mine back from the dead? I argue that we have to start a war of attrition on mainstream platforms.
I'm not against this angle. But IMO evangelization and conversions only really worked when backed by the state
My approach is calmly keep using free platforms, keep degoogling, when sharing information, share the links from those free platforms, so it keeps pinging in general consciousness that these exist. So the next time everyone does suprised pikachu face to what extent our data is used against us, you don't have to say "see? I told you". They come to you asking how to do this, what are the limitations and realities of getting free etc
But, of course, as with everything, diversity is a strength. Some of us should fight, some of us stay calm and keep going on
I think
Wouldn't that enable an angle of "martyr for freedom of speech"?
Could you elaborate on this angle? I'm not very well versed in the rights of companies operating in the EU, but I'm unsure "freedom of speech" is one of them.
Edit: I did find information about how social media needs to help us protect freedom of speech for all of their users. Currently, X is doing the opposite it seems
Could you elaborate on this angle? I’m not very well versed in the rights of companies operating in the EU, but I’m unsure “freedom of speech” is one of them.
I rather mean "political discourse"
There was Twitter. Apart from advertising, the very good thing it brought was free access to information. But not only getting it, also sharing. So we knew about for example Arab Spring or Umbrella protests and more or less what is going on, before news decided to tell us and how to tell us
Then came Musk, all in white, saying that moderation on Twitter is biased and he's going to bring it more freedom of speech
Some time passes and let's say that now EU does ban X. What's the next logical thing he'll say?
I think it might be something like "see? EU banned X because they didn't like the truth. For the truth, come to me". I'm afraid that banning would rather give him power and echo chamber, rather than fixing what is going on
Let me guess, you think Russia/China/etc. banning websites is bad (because obviously they are doing it due to being authoriatarian regimes and to not let people learn the truth), and EU (or generally any western country) banning websites is good (because obviously it would be done to protect democracy and people from consuming dangerous misinformation)?
Did I miss anything? :)
Yes, you missed how social media algorithms work, having captivated the attention of whole nations, and carefully control every bit of information that pass in front of your eyes, then some billionaire buying said mechanism and taking part in the government he helped elected, then threatening the nations that have banned him that they will lose the next elections. Did I miss anything?
Real democracies need to shield themselves from this kind of corporate interference, yet most people don't even understand how it works, or why Cambridge Analytica was a big hit, or where are these experts now and how they are making a living.
Yeah, so just as I said - good guys banning social medias is good because they are the good guys protecting the democracy against bad people and so on, and bad guys banning social medias is bad because they are the bad guys censoring the truth from oppressed people or something.
No hypocrisy here :)
So, to save democracy, let's go full North Korea on the platforms we don't like. 🤨
Pointing out their hypocrisy will not help anybody. The best you can do is sit down and watch this comedy from the sidelines.
Pointing out their hypocrisy will not help anybody.
I choose to, perhaps naively, think that some people might actually recognize how absurd this is, and hopefully change their opinion :)
The best you can do is sit down and watch this comedy from the sidelines.
Just "watching comedy from the sidelines" can result in one day waking up in a totalitarian hell :/
(Not that my shitposting will change much of course :/)
No I think they're both ok, good talk.
Musk has openly supported right-wing politicians such as Trump and Meloni in Italy
Not right-wing, far right. Or fascists. Even though Meloni is much more coherent than Trump so it's difficult to put both of them in the same basket.
Idk why a ban is necessary. Just remove some of the protections so they can be held liable for things they should be held liable for.
They're currently not liable for third-party content (if they have reasonable moderation policies and respond in a timely manner to requests, yada yada). But if they promote it, they are no longer a passive hosting platform; they are actively promoting content so should be held proportionately liable for that content.
Get out of here with that logical thought. Elon bad.
As much as I hate X, I might have to think about this one for a while. Sure, this platform is a vessel for fascist propaganda and a threat to democracy, but on the other hand, creating a legitimate precedent for banning a social network on political grounds might be a slippery slope. The EU has already made dubious reforms regarding internet freedom, like their antiterrorist bill which require website hosts to remove content whithin an hour if it is signaled to them by the police. I'm not sure if giving them more power and legitimacy in policing online content is a good idea...
If you don't censor hate speech and allow malicious propaganda to be the default, is there really any value in letting it be accessible?
The problem really is that the lenders of X's debt probably have a significant influence and have a vested interest in recouping their money.
I don't believe there is any value in X. In fact I'd say it has negative value. However, granting the UE power and legitimacy to censor any website for political reason also has a negative value, and I'm not certain which is lower.
Shutting down a nontheoretical fascist breeding ground VS. a theoretical slide to 1984.
Isn't this the lesser evilism I was fed for the last year? Isn't this the trolley problem? This should be easy for the American left to get behind.
Instead its "okay a little fascism is okay, as a treat" and its odd to me.
Maybe it'd be an easy choice for the American left, but I'm from the French left. Along with groups such as La Quadrature du Net have been protesting reforms like the aforementioned european directive for adressing antiterrorist contents, of France's temporary ban on Telegram during the riots or the ban of Tiktok in Kanaky during the uprising, and now we're supposed to turn around and say "actually censorship is cool"? Are we to empower those we're fighting in hope that they exclusively use this power against our common enemies? I've left Twitter the very day its purchase by the muskrat was officialized and I've been telling everyone I know to do as much. Sure, a european ruling would give me something I want, but I don't trust in what comes next. There's no way the European Union bans X and don't end up blocking left wing fedi instances like ml or hexbear, as soon as their existence is brought to their attention.
self-censorship 😂 wonderful
Ban surveillance advertising and help speed the demise of the site, or mandate interop and make it easy for those still on it to take their followers with them, but holy fuck bro—calling for a government to ban a communications platform for an entire continent?
The EU can and should ban government and business's from using twitter as part of their official communications. But if private citizens wants to tweet, then sure go for it, even the EU with it's less then stellar speech record, particularly with the labeling antisemitism, still allows freedom of association.
Fuck that platform, if it dies right now the world will be a better place overnight. That being said, I’m against it being banned - imo if we’re petitioning for anything, it should be to get governments off of it and onto better alternatives.
"It's not censorship, it's counter-disinformation measures!! 1!"
I also think he should be investigated for buying votes in the recent election.
Don't think it's a good thing to ban anything from anywhere. The best way is to make them realize how bad mainstreams socials are bad. Everyone is concerned about the Elon Musk's social but nobody care when GAMAM harvest your datas
Why do you people talk about defending and supporting democracy, but never talk about that the population has a right to vote for anti-government people? Democracy is about following the will of the people, and if the majority of the people vote to cut government, eliminate government, and start taking powers away from government rule, democracy says to follow the vote of the people.
Because we have to defend democracy or it will be eroded. We should not stand by idly as misinformation and corporate interests continue to cripple it. Just because people are voting against their best interests does not mean they are no longer their best interests.
Fedi for the win.
i wonder if elon would prod trump to make good on their threat to defund nato if the eu cancels twitter. how would it impact ukraine?
We have several major social media banned here, and they're still popular. All a ban would do would be teaching people what VPNs are... As well as exposing a lot of them to malware, because most people would not be doing research and instead of legitimate, charity-run free censorship evasion tools, they'd be using shady apps from the top of Play Store search results.
If the ban comes from "up top", people's desire to use it will not suddenly disappear. If the people decide to leave en masse on their own - now that'd make an impact.
What about banning any non-federated social network?
So funny to see how a media campaign gets so many sheep following and beleiving without questioning. All they have to scream is fascist repadidly and sheep will repeat.
While government was in control of Twitter and silenced and censored harvard educated doctors and professors about Covid to push the vaccine and make billions, nobody screamed Twitter was fascist. Or did you forget the twitter files? Suddendly twitter is bad once gov censorship is gone but Facebook/Threads is ok because things gov wants to censor is being censored.
I'm not saying social media is not bad and yes, needs to be controlled but seriously use a little bit of your brain before blindly repeating someone else's words. Learn history, see a bit from other angles and maybe think a bit why Twitter is being singled out right now.
Social media is bad but lack of critical thinking is way way worse.
I mean, it's a controversial one but if citizens want it then why not? I see some people here saying that banning it would be a bad decision for the government but in case of a petition, they're not doing it because they want to but because their voters told them to.
Also I don't have much against such a radical approach to improving privacy. Most people nowadays can't be made to care or do something. They can only be forced. Though such enforcement can make them vote against that government but that's up to demographic researchers to analyze.