EFF is leaving X

kennywinker

As we all should. I’m not playing in a billionaire’s toxic propaganda sandbox, neither should you.

nickdothutton

These are interesting numbers for engagement but don't mean as much without equivalent stats for the other platforms. It's a little like when a news story quotes only a percentage (but not the absolute figure in $) or vice versa.

mrits

"The math hasn’t worked out for a while now." How lazy do you have to be to not like this math. They act like tweeting is some sort of significant effort.

colechristensen

TL;DR Nobody reads their posts on Twitter any more because most of the people are gone.

thomasarmel

Thanks, maybe I can suggest posting here the statement in their website instead of the tweet, in order to avoid generating traffic on X

postepowanieadm

I will follow them on linkedin.

ks2048

> To put it bluntly, an X post today receives less than 3% of the views a single tweet delivered seven years ago. That's a huge drop. It could be changes to the algorithm or it could be their former readers are no longer on X. I suppose it's both.

daft_pink

Duplicate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47706120

mellosouls

If they justify it in terms of reach and impressions then say they will still be on BlueSky and Mastodon then you know it's purely ideological. Which is fine but just be honest about it.

Brendinooo

That statement pretty clearly shows that they have certain ideological concerns that they value more highly than the kind of stuff we tend to think the EFF primarily cares about (digital privacy, open source, patent trolling, etc). Through that lens, I guess it makes sense that they see TikTok, Instagram, and BlueSky as worth their time and presence but not X.

Ir0nMan

This reads as very performative. You don't have to choose between posting 10 times a day or deleting your account; you could just post less or use it for major updates.

bradley13

So they're still getting a million impressions s month, and that's not interesting Anyway, putting something up on Instagram and then also on X - that's pretty low effort, no? Weird decision... Also: 1500 posts per year, so around 4 per day - a bit much. There just aren't four important topics to talk about each and every day. Honestly, I wouldn't subscribe to that either. Maybe that's part of why their numbers are going down...

bko

> Musk fired the entire human rights team and laid off staffers in countries where the company previously fought off censorship demands from repressive regimes Is the contention here that there is more censorship on X compared to Twitter pre acquisition? Is X more heavily censored than Facebook or TikTok They go on to say they're still on Facebook and TikTok and explain: > 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. None of this is unique to Facebook and TikTok and not for X. > Young people, people of color, queer folks, activists, and organizers use Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook every day I'm pretty sure all these demographics use X as well. It's just so bizarre. If you want to reach people, esp people that maybe come from a different perspective from you, why would you opt out of the best way to get your message across?

amatecha

Is there any site that keeps track of companies/orgs and/or noteworthy people who have left "X"? I've noticed some pretty significant orgs leaving in the recent year or two and have repeatedly wondered if there's some kind of list out there. I mean, it would just be a handy list to show people when I say something like "more and more people are leaving that garbage site" and they want receipts and I'm like... "uh the province of New Brunswick was the latest I saw" >_> I found this list of celebrities in the meantime, at least: https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/celebrity/twitter-celebr...

ApolloFortyNine

This reads like the classic Youtuber whose annoyed their views dropped (this almost always amounts to 'people don't actually like your content as much as you thought'). >We posted to Twitter (now known as X) five to ten times a day in 2018. Those tweets garnered somewhere between 50 and 100 million impressions per month. By 2024, our 2,500 X posts generated around 2 million impressions each month. 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. It's incredibly unlikely someone at X shoved the EFF in a 'low visibility' bucket. It's much more likely they've simply updated their alogorithms and the EFF doesn't hit some engagement metric. They're still getting 13 million impressions by simply posting tweets, I really don't understand 'taking a stand' here. Instead of 13 million they'll simply get 0... The opportunity cost in the worst case is a human being copy pasting a tweet, there's plenty of software to schedule posts across platforms though, which would make it essentially free even in user time. Imo, they had a 'personal stance' motivation, and dug deep for any reason to argue for it.

blurbleblurble

More should follow them. That website is a complete cesspool at this point and if you're not noticing it I worry about how it's gonna effect your psychological wellbeing later in life. The internet is bad enough as it is, but that site is at another degree of awful.

numpad0

> We called for: > - Transparent content moderation: Publicly shared policies, clear appeals processes, and renewed commitment to the Santa Clara Principles > - Real security improvements: Including genuine end-to-end encryption for direct messages > - Greater user control: Giving users and third-party developers the means to control the user experience through filters and interoperability. Makes sense. Especially the point 1 and 3 had been long-standing issues for Twitter since before the acquisition, and the situation had worsened since - only except that means to those became successively more adorably braindead.

an0malous

I closed my X account Tuesday evening after the US-Iran ceasefire was announced. Something just snapped finally and I realized there’s no value in monitoring the situation and all these accounts are just monetizing my energy and attention with no value provided. The only social media I’m going to keep for now is Reddit and YouTube because I think it’s still a net positive for the educational content, but even those are on the chopping block for me. The whole Internet is being capitalized into junk food, people just push out sensationalized low calorie garbage because they get paid per view. It’s sad to see.

anonymousiam

I left EFF last year. I was a top-tier donor for 20 years, but EFF has changed from neutral rights-focused activism into questionable political activism. Leaving X is just another example of it. Would EFF be leaving X if Elon had not taken over? Does EFF actually believe that there's more free speech on Facebook?

rockemsockem

This seems completely unnecessary and performative. I have a hard time understanding how reducing their reach could possibly be helpful to the goals of the organization. I'm definitely going to keep donating to them, but I'm concerned.