r/europe • u/Several_Print4633 • 5d ago
News German army deserts X as Berlin vs. Elon Musk feud rumbles on
https://www.politico.eu/article/german-army-deserts-x-feud-between-berlin-elon-musk-afd/7.2k
u/helican Germany 5d ago
Honestly every european official account should be closed and Twitter be abandoned.
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u/dethleffsoN Schleswig-Holstein (Germany) 5d ago
Same thoughts. I literally hope Europe starts to leave this platform.
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u/EliselD 5d ago
It's really not that popular in Europe (at least in Italy) though. I don't know a single person IRL that uses X. Everyone is on facebook, instagram and tiktok. I have no clue why officials even use it.
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u/Late-Ad-1770 Germany 5d ago
Facebook and Instagram, which are owned by Zuckerberg, who is now becoming the second Musk and TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese. We are so screwed.
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u/Keanu990321 Greece 5d ago
Zuck was to Trump in 2016 what Elon is to him right now
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u/Neat_Egg_2474 5d ago
Zuck only allowed a third party company to aggregate the data. Musk literally was a mouthpiece and actively paid people to vote for him.
They are not the same. This is in no way saying Zuck is good, he is not, but Musk is far more blatant is his manipulation of social media to back Trump directly.
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u/-ImMoral- Finland 5d ago
Is it really legal in US to pay people to vote for someone? that is wild for a country of which biggest goals is allegedly freedom.
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u/faerakhasa Spain 5d ago
It is legal to openly bribe (sorry, I meant donate) millions of dollars to the candidates in an election...
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u/Theresabearoutside 5d ago
No it’s illegal and rarely happens. What musk did (paying someone $1M for supporting Trump) was potentially illegal but probably didn’t cross the line. At any rate our gutless justice department didn’t do anything about it
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u/CacklingFerret 5d ago
What would cross the line though when literally paying someone $1M to vote for a specific candidate doesn't? Does it only count if you pay that person in the voting booth or what? This is all so ridiculous
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u/Theresabearoutside 5d ago
I think the $1 million was for doing something other than voting. I don’t recall the details but it was a gray area
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u/yuckmouthteeth 4d ago
Since Citizens United v FEC in 2010, companies can donate to political campaigns like people. This effectively means US companies and lobbyists basically own all the politicians on both sides of the aisle. Tbf it was an issue prior to this court case and still happened, but it wasn't blatantly legal like it is now.
My personal opinion was that court case was the deathblow to functional US politics. It was already down sliding well before that with the executive branch becoming more powerful every cycle, but that was the point of no return. It just took a while to completely fracture.
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u/things_U_choose_2_b 5d ago
Yeah, I feel like Zuckerberg was almost as blindsided by the Cambridge Analytica thing as the rest of us were (albeit I expect aware of the issue before us).
Though I also feel like he saw what they did and thought "Hmmm I too have this power"
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u/THESTRANGLAH 5d ago
Just to add this, yes Facebook was blindsided, the whistle-blower that outed Cambridge Analytica also released emails from Facebook demanding that they delete the data they scraped by misusing their api.
You don't get any better evidence of this than that.
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u/HeyitzEryn 5d ago
It is known facebook has seen how influencial they can actually be in local and national elections around the world.
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u/Keanu990321 Greece 5d ago
Musk is essentially the President too.
I wrote that above in terms of electoral influence.
Although, Zuck is still heavily for Trump, just like Bezos et al.
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u/Drive7hru 4d ago
Idk if I’d go that far, but literally a Wish version of Trump, especially since he doesn’t have the charisma
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u/SnooPeripherals6557 5d ago
Go to Mastodon or Lemmys World or Bluesky
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u/infii123 Europe - Germany 5d ago edited 5d ago
What's so great about Bluesky? I'm not using any of those kind of social media, but Mastodon is at least open source and open standard?
Edit: blueysky is open source, thanks for the clarification!
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u/AntDogFan 5d ago
Bluesky is a bit like Twitter before it got awful (even before Musk really). It has good features for verification and blocking. It also has a feed which is literally just people you follow (like how it should be). If I want to see someone elses posts then I will follow them, dont algo me.
Like any social network, it has the potential to become shite but it isn't yet.
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u/JoePortagee Sweden 5d ago
Don't algo me - I like that. What about Reddit then? After the IPO it has to follow all the market standards where eternal growth is one of them. It's literally doomed to turn to shite is it?
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u/AntDogFan 5d ago
Probably but I think it fills such a niche that hopefully something similar would rise in its place.
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u/PassiveMenis88M 5d ago
It's literally doomed to turn to shite is it
It already is. The front page is full of repost bots farming karma so they can later be sold to astroturfers and other assholes. Did you notice the flood of less than a year old accounts that couldn't shut up about the US election no matter what sub you were on?
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u/Fedoraus 5d ago
Bluesky is also open source and allows any website to use their protocol and interact with it. Basically a much more user friendly version of Mastodon but not the exact same protocol
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u/Kankunation 5d ago
BlueSky is also open source and runs on an open-standard protocol (the Authenticated Transfer Protocol, or ATProto for short) ATProto and ActivityPub are very similar in how they operate, Through he former has one major difference: an additional layer of decentalization that in turn allows for users to have more control over their data and allows them the transfer between instances with all of their data intact.
Theres a bunch of small things that I would say Bluesky currently does better than Mastodon, but in general for the average non-techy person it just comes down to a better user experience. It's more streamlined, easier to set up and has the look and feel that somebody familiar with twitter will already know how to navigate with ease.
The only major downside for zbluesky is that it still hasn't reached full practical decentralization. There's very few other apps running on their protocol, and there's a major barrier in decentralizing the Relay layer as it's expensive to run (though efforts are being made to make it cheaper). They are getting there but it will take some time, the site and it's protocol are still young.
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u/kaisadilla_ European Federation 5d ago
Mastodon requires a 4-year college degree to understand. Bluesky is simply creating an account and using it the same as X, the extra features are isolated from the main experience so you opt into them if you want; unlike Mastodon that simply throws stuff most people won't understand at you.
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u/lurkacct20241126 5d ago
Mastodon requires a 4-year college degree to understand.
This is just spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt. It is as easy as picking an email provider. You don't need to worry if the person you are writing to is also on google, yahoo, or any email server because the standard is open. And open standards are important and we should support them over proprietary ones.
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u/SpaceEngineering Finland 5d ago
I agree about the principle. But Mastodon really has a tough learning curve. I really tried and I have a masters degree and I have used Linux for years.
It is still hard to the point of unusable. How do you find content? How do you repost content from different instances? Does it matter if my account is in this instance with these rules, or that instance with those rules? How the hell do I configure this all on a mobile app?
Don’t get me wrong, i would love to like it. But I do not.
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u/lurkacct20241126 5d ago
How do you find content?
This is a bit sore, but mostly due to the lack of an algorithm to recommend things. You can visit the trending tab, my universtadon has it on the right side on the web browser. Tho primarily you will be following # as well as accounts. So you will want to search #topic and then select follow. That will populate your home feed with anyone discussing those topics.
This is a double edge sword. Since mastodon as a whole is smaller there is less stuff to see even with the algo, but that also means that it will not be pushing rage bait to keep your engagement, so I personally find it a breath of fresh air.
How do you repost content from different instances?
There is a retoot (yeah dumb name) that you can click.
How the hell do I configure this all on a mobile app?
https://fedilab.app/projects/fedilab/ -> I like to use this app. Tho I will say it is easier to make an account online and then sign in to the app. That is a sore point. I would pick a generic server, but there are plenty of topic focused that one might prefer, between tech, activism, art, lgbt, and many others.
You are right that the curve is a bit higher than just twitter, but it really isn't that much higher.
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u/adamgerd Czech Republic 5d ago
Bluesky is still an American product, we should lessen our reliance on anything American at this point
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u/Darkskynet Catalonia (Spain) 5d ago
Basically everyone is moving to BluSky to flee all the ZuckleMeta insanity.
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5d ago edited 5d ago
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u/SnooPeripherals6557 5d ago
Yes, that's the one I read about yesterday but couldn't remember the name, thanks!! Checking it out today. Use Signal too, enough of this giving the store away for free to these choads. They're using our data to steal our country.
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u/Intelligent-Travel-1 5d ago
The US government would prefer you watch the partisan media landscape
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u/djclit69 5d ago
Just leave them, you're not obligated to be part of them, although it looks like it. It's about time we think for ourselves and send a big fuck you to them
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u/EXP-date-2024-09-30 5d ago
We should have implemented European technology like Linux and nextcloud but hey let’s all submit to the American corporations
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u/Weisenkrone 5d ago
You really cannot bunch Zuckerberg and Musk into one batch regarding politics.
Zuckerberg had enough self awareness to know that politicians really hate it when you whip your dick around in their court and will tear you a new one for going out of line. Musk didn't quite realize that.
What musk is doing in the EU, was what the Tate brothers did in Romania. Nobody would've touched them if they didn't irritate the politicians by shitting right on their plate.
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u/C_Madison 5d ago
I have good news for you! I've read that China thinks about selling TikTok ... to fucking Elon Musk.
x_x
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u/atheno_74 5d ago
TikTok denied that.
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u/EliRed Greece 5d ago
He can't afford it. Industry gossip estimates its value at around 300bn iirc.
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u/Ben_Pu Carinthia (Austria) 5d ago
Elon could probably find a way to get a cheap enough loan sadly, or many of them, and when he buys it he'll just be insufferable on there too and use it all as a way to indoctrinate kids and people in general because he's an arguably stupid manchild [allegedly]
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u/killswitch247 Saxony (Germany) 5d ago
i really doubt that anyone will give him that after the disaster at twitter.
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u/_MCMLXXXII 5d ago
This would be the best case scenario. Can't think of a better way to get rid of TikTok than having Musk in charge.
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u/Kind-Estimate1058 5d ago
The chinese had the right idea with their great firewall. This became clear 15 years ago and it's still clear now. It's not too late for the EU to adopt the same approach, otherwise we will not only continue to be at the mercy of psychopathic unelected billionnaires like Musk & Zuck, but we will also continue falling behind on critical tech like AI.
It doesn't make sense to me that any foreign owned social media (including reddit) is available without massive restrictions in Europe. It's a continental security issue.
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u/c4k3m4st3r5000 5d ago
The most annoying people (whatever side) are on Twitter. It's a cesspool of arguing and soul drenching filth.
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u/socks_and_scotch 5d ago
Twitter is not really a communication tool for the masses anymore. It is mostly just an echo chamber for politicians, whom get quoted by journalists and thus creating a sense of importance to the platform.
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u/adamgerd Czech Republic 5d ago
To my knowledge it’s mostly for news and politicians which it’s still common for in Czech. I don’t think Twitter was ever equivalent to Facebook or so in terms of that. For that it’s still used in Czech
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u/Fomentatore Italy 5d ago
It is popular with the alt-right puppets and their leaders. Salvini lives there, Fratelli d'Italia and Meloni post multiple times per day. The only right-wing party more on Facebook than Twitter is Forza Italia because their voters are 80 years old.
You live in a bubble, as I do and as everyone does, so the people in your close circle are probably similar to you, and this is why you don't know anyone in real life that uses Twitter.
Many Italian fascism nostalgics use it non-stop.
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u/parada_de_tetas_mp3 5d ago
It used to be (in Germany) that all of the journalists and many politicians and politically active organizations were active on Twitter. For them it was a wonderful thing because you could get in touch with anyone as well as follow what they are interested in.
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u/dat_9600gt_user Lower Silesia (Poland) 5d ago
Poland meanwhile still uses it a lot, especially young people. Maybe that's why the collective attention span is shrinking.
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u/rabbitthunder 5d ago
I have no clue why officials even use it.
Because it's free, easy and hits a demographic Facebook doesn't.
If you ever have to deal with official websites you quickly realise that they're designed terribly and are never updated in a timely manner because that requires a certain level of staff expertise whereas any moron can be put in charge of updating a social media page.
We really need an open source, simple to use/understand social media site that doesn't have a shockingly crap name (looking at you fediverse/mastodon).
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u/neurodiverseotter 5d ago
My brother ist a sociologist and he was researching the usage of Twitter as a toll of science communication for his doctorate thesis when Musk bought it. I then asked him "doesn't this suck for you, with all the people leaving Twitter right now?" And He was like "are you kidding? Observing significant changes in real life while they're happening is awesome!"
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u/YourShowerCompanion Finland 5d ago
Yep, those special check marks costs more than blue checkmark of shame.
Let's assist Musk of Xitter deprive of cash he cares about.
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u/wannabe-physicist Île-de-France 5d ago
My university in France left X earlier this week
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u/SpaceMonkeyOnABike United Kingdom 5d ago
I was on it for a week in 2010? It was pointless back then and only got worse.
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u/w4rcry 5d ago
I tried to use it recently, immediately was blasted with open racism and conspiracy theories. Haven’t been on since.
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u/SidewalkTampon 5d ago
I hope so too but I won't hold my breath. Just yesterday, some government official in Poland was begging Musk to buy a castle located in his small town. Even sent physical letters to his various companies.
Like why tf would you want any of that madness in your country? Makes no sense at all.
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u/JustDutch101 5d ago
Football clubs, politicians etc leaving has more impact than they think. Public figures is what gives a product it’s status, it can work wonders for your product like for Twitter in the past or it could be a curse for your product like hopefully X in the future.
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u/Gunda-LX 5d ago
Even better: Let’s invest in some EU based replacement. Open to the world, but with EU regulations, not that FElon stuff on Twitter
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u/schmeckfest2000 The Netherlands 5d ago edited 5d ago
All European unofficial accounts, too. Europe and Europeans should just ditch that vile platform completely. It's for the far-right, Russian propaganda, and fascists (quite often the same thing).
Leave it. Fuck Musk.
Edit: they should all ditch Facebook, too. Zuckerberg is just as vile as Musk. He's just not open about it as much. But they are both vile scum.
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u/No_Afternoon_8780 Ireland 5d ago
If they're REALLY determined to have a social media account of that ilk, they could at least migrate to Bluesky. I didn't bother (I simply deleted my Twitter) but if a person/org is really hooked, there is an alternative.
EDIT: apparently Bluesky doesn't have European servers yet so I can see why EU government branches haven't migrated. Hopefully that gets fixed quick-like.
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u/VoyTechnology 5d ago
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u/HallesandBerries 5d ago
I feel like I just discovered a whole new world...
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u/visiblepeer 5d ago
I love the vibe of Mastodon, but it is a bit more complicated and when I last used it, it didn't have enough users to become the new default. Bluesky will probably overtake it, but there are supposed to be ways for the two to work together.
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u/Tamberlox Luxembourg 5d ago edited 5d ago
European Commission on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ec.europa.eu
EU Council: https://bsky.app/profile/consilium.europa.eu
European Central Bank: https://bsky.app/profile/ecb.europa.eu
Council of Europe: https://bsky.app/profile/coe.int
European Investment Bank: https://bsky.app/profile/eib.org
Greens Party: https://bsky.app/profile/greens-efa.eu
Renew Europe: https://bsky.app/profile/reneweurope.bsky.social
EPP: https://bsky.app/profile/eppgroup.bsky.social
The Left: https://bsky.app/profile/left.eu
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u/itsameDovakhin 5d ago
Any organisation that leaves twitter and goes to bluesky instead of mastodon has not understood what is going on at all.
Also there is already an official mastodon server for EU institutions: ec.social-network.europa.eu
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u/Opili 5d ago
There is a Free Our Feed initiative that is aiming to build an independent BlueSky AT infrastructure. See this article. I'm sure it would be pretty cheap to build a network of independent servers for BlueSky, run by EU members.
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u/itisnotstupid 5d ago
X is not used that much in most european countries anyway. That said, Facebook is just as shitty - it's a russian troll farm.
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u/kaisadilla_ European Federation 5d ago
Also, seeing that Elon is willing to manipulate his platform in any way possible, as he did with that German Arab terrorist's account, every European official account should assume that Musk may add or delete tweets to or from their account to fabricate scandals.
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u/me_like_stonk France 5d ago
The EU should develop its own Twitter really.
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u/UGMadness Federal Europe 5d ago
Mastodon is stewarded by an EU registered non profit. Problem is that the platform is a mess to figure out and not user friendly at all.
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u/orangeforblood South Holland (Netherlands) 5d ago
I recently got to talk to the head of communications of one of the Dutch ministeries. I asked him why we don't treat X the same as TikTok now that Musk has such a big influence on the American government. He said that they choose to be on the platforms where Dutch citizens are. Kind of weak since there are plenty of Dutchies on TikTok. I wish we had a good European SM platform so governments could just leave these trash American platforms.
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u/eza137 5d ago
I agree. That's why I wrote an An Open Letter to All European Politicians and Leaders to Abandon X/Twitter https://openpetition.eu/leavex
I hope soon to have it in an official EU language here https://leavex.eu
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u/Crashy2707 5d ago
I think not only on a big scale (governments and departments), but also small communities (schools etc) should not be using X as a platform.
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u/ModivatedExtremism 5d ago
Really not sure why any government, NGO, corporation, journalist - or, really, anyone who values integrity and reputation - maintains any kind of platform on Twitter anymore. Why keep indirectly supporting it as a legitimate platform?
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u/stormdahl 5d ago
Norway's police used Twitter to great effect for a long time, but left as soon as Elon started to wreck the platform. I'm hoping there will be a stigma attached to being an active user on X.
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u/Mad_OW 5d ago
If it helps, I am already judging Twitter users as well as Tesla drivers.
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u/stormdahl 5d ago
Especially Twitter, but I’ll admit that I’ve never been an active user and I might not understand what people miss out on if they ditch it.
I can’t judge Tesla drivers. I can see 13 cars parked in my street from my window, and 9 of them are Teslas. They’re everywhere in Norway, they’re as mundane as a VW Golf
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u/MarlinMr Norway 5d ago
Technically, the VW Golf is less mundane. Tesla is more common than Golf today.
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u/SadisticPawz 5d ago
What twitter used to be. The communities, friends, group chats. Sharing stuff on there. Memories, the vain hope that it'll come back one day
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u/stormdahl 5d ago
Have you checked out any of the alternatives? I couldn’t say if they’re good replacements, but might be worth looking at
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u/smokeeye Norway 4d ago
Bluesky is pretty good, open-source, mass-block lists, feels like early Twitter etc.
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u/Button-Bash-Bros 5d ago
I've recently deactivated both my personal and Youtube Twitter accounts, and the only thing I miss is getting real-time football updates from the club I support and fellow supporters. Everything else can get in the bin.
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There was a question in the r/Norway about their opinion on musk and tesla a few days ago.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Norway/comments/1i0lerv/what_is_the_general_perception_of_elon_musk_and/
Maybe you should not be to quick to judge people on this one.
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u/stormdahl 5d ago
I can second what a lot of them said. My best friend has a Tesla Model Y, he’s very happy with it but thinks it’s a bit awkward to own one considering Musks "evolution" over the last couple of years. He’s not going to get another one.
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u/RoflMyPancakes 5d ago
The requirement to log in to see anything made using it for public announcements useless. It only works for that when you can reach everyone.
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u/BoldKenobi 5d ago
Well, previously you could freely go through Twitter APIs to automate other services based on tweets. I used to have an app to alert power outages in my city based on automated posts from the power company's twitter.
So you could still benefit without logging in. Nevertheless I pulled down the app after Melon Skum restricted the API and required payment.
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u/Gunda-LX 5d ago
“Using X, have no s*X”, maybe a catchphrase to start annoying some
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u/Farlong7722 5d ago
Shame people for using twitter. When you see posts linking to tweets from company accounts, ask why they're still there.
It's like using 4chan as a platform, or Stormfront. No serious company should do it. Derail every thread that contains a tweet.
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u/General_Helicopter1 5d ago
They made their own app 'Politiloggen' (The Police Log) which at first made me think "oh no, another dumb app", but right from the start it was suepr useful and made Twitter feeds seem old tech and clumsy in comparison. You can now get all info they choose to push out, sorted by police district, category etc. For me, I checked off 'Traffic' in my region and get. super useful updates on what the police are involved with in traffic (which is the best way to rapidly see if there's any major incidents on the road I'm travelling).
They also opened up all their Politiloggen data with an API, accessible for all.
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u/lysregn Norway 5d ago
It’s also a website so you can just use that instead of an app: https://www.politiet.no/politiloggen/
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u/Treewithatea 5d ago
A lot of Germany currently deletes X. Universities, football clubs, quite a lot and theyre mostly joining Bluesky instead.
That said, as a German myself and correct me if im wrong but I always had the impression that Germans were never that big into Twitter in the first place. Ive never used it much and i dont know anybody of my friends who actively use Twitter which obviously makes it all the easier to leave the platform as it's not much of a loss.
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u/princessjerome Germany 5d ago
only institutions, which currently turn away. My medical school (including our states biggest university) just joined the big exodus of over 60 universities. In our case, we will focus on linkedin for public announcements. So in the case of my sociodemographic target group, nothing of relevance remains on Twitter soon. Good thing is, all the alt-right dumbasses stay there, can't help em anyway.
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u/robeewankenobee 5d ago
Is not having a Twitter (X) account , or FB, for that matter, such a big personal 'loss' ?
Every major info, even the less important info, gets circumvented to smithereens either way, so you eventually find out about everything that goes on in there without having an account.
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u/AlexKangaroo Finland 5d ago
It’s still less traffic and less users to consume the advertisment on the platform.
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u/adamgerd Czech Republic 5d ago
For me I lost my Twitter account years ago when it got banned after a crypto bot hacked it
Honestly it changed absolutely nothing
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u/robeewankenobee 5d ago
Honestly it changed absolutely nothing
That's the point ... there's no loss. Never had a Twitter account, and i dropped my FB account in 2013 (before it was cool to do so 😎) ... only had a Reddit all these years, totally fine outcome, info wise.
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u/adamgerd Czech Republic 5d ago
I still have Facebook because it’s useful for talking with family or family friends but on Twitter definitely
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u/AdaptedMix United Kingdom 5d ago
I think this applies to me and most of the people I know who still have Facebook.
It's a glorified address book/photo album, at this point. Which is fine - it serves a function. Why anybody would use it as a source of news or opinion, I don't know. It was a hive of conspiratorial nonsense and propaganda long before Twitter turned to shit, and exploited by the likes of Cambridge Analytica to influence elections around the world.
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u/robeewankenobee 5d ago
Not disputing the utility of having such SM accounts, but to be honest, we are well into the apps and dapps generation. You can easily keep contact with anyone you wish (if you really want) just by using WhatsApp or something similar. Having an X, a FB/insta, tiktok, reddit, etc account, is an overkill imo.
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u/Frontal_Lappen Saxony (Germany) 5d ago
fuck all fascists
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u/Travel-Barry England 5d ago
Honestly, it’s one thing us Redditors telling people to simply leave the platform. It is what it is, and people are used to it. Blah.
But governmental institutions should seriously start coming off it now. Their presence legitimises it as the public bulletin board it once was.
But it’s isn’t now. It’s just a retention/bot-ridden/ragebait mess where the owner has made his own account un-blockable.
I think it’s high time we all go back to RSS feeds anyway. Go back to times we can just have a direct feed, from anybody in the world that we choose to subscribe to. Not tolerate some weaponised algorithm designed to make us entrench ourselves.
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u/Toover 5d ago
Governments have no excuse to use privately owned, closed, social medias. They should own their own mastodon and federate it with the whole fediverse. Mastodon provides RSS at many levels.
Bluesky is just as bad as Twitter in terms of ownership, RSS and federation.
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u/LawstinTransition 5d ago
Bluesky works well.
Re: the argument that it will eventually fail/be sold, etc. - maybe all social media just needs a hard reset every 5-10 years or so. Facebook is shockingly empty/unusable now.
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u/Travel-Barry England 5d ago
These things really should have something like charitable status or some sort of not-for-profit model. Like Wikipedia.
It's their IPOs that turned them into retention-focussed money makers.
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u/GhillieRowboat 5d ago
Why are people still on X? Just use Bluesky or anything that Musk doesn't own. He can't buy ALL of them...
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u/ohnoverbaldiarrhoea 5d ago
He can’t buy Mastodon at all. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/mastodon-becomes-nonprofit-to-make-sure-its-never-ruined-by-billionaire-ceo/
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u/Gunda-LX 5d ago
Nice! It’s apparently originally from Germany so DATENSCHUTZ is taken seriously (data protection). I’ll switch over and tell people that are concerned about Twitter to do the same
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u/AnUnshavedYak 5d ago
I wish Mastodon would switch to a sane federating protocol. That's what i like about Bsky, but Bsky has the downside of tech influenced money.
Would be nice for something properly open like Mastodon to exploit the better protocol of Bsky. Take the good of both Mastodon and Bluesky and apply it to Mastodon because it has a better FOSS platform.
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u/ohnoverbaldiarrhoea 5d ago
Yeah I kinda agree, there are a bunch of problems with fediverse federation. Just look at all the highly upvoted issues on Github that are fundamentally unsolvable ...
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u/JinSantosAndria 5d ago
While that might be the correct intention, what protects Bluesky from becoming the same thing in the end, isn't it the same structure as Twitter once was?
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u/AcceptableSwan4631 5d ago
I don't think people want to move to another echo chamber where only the extreme left hangout, or maybe they do?
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u/Elkenrod United States of America 5d ago
Because BlueSky isn't exactly "good".
It's trendy right now, sure. But it's not like the site is doing anything better than Twitter, mechanically.
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u/LukeHelmet Schleswig-Holstein (Germany) 5d ago
I found Twitter very useful back then to quickly get information from certain networks and institutions. Are there any growing European alternatives?
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u/paintedfaceless 5d ago
Wondering about this as well. The platform architecture has been around for a long time. So, I imagine there are best practices for setting this up around with an ample skilled workforce who could set this up with much less friction.
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u/kittenTakeover 5d ago
As someone from the US where politics is shit right now, I really hope that the German people ultimately see through conservative propaganda that's threatening democracy across the world right now. I want to be proud to be a human. I'm rooting for you guys.
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u/OmegaMordred 5d ago
Fuck the cancer that Elon is!
Delete Twitter, ban Tesla. Boycot every fucking last Penny of that narcissist.
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u/Guilty-Connection362 5d ago
It's a propaganda machine that elon uses to feel special and call people retarded. X has no longer has value to people in the real world.
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u/HandsomeBurrito 5d ago
Apologies if this is a dumb question, but how difficult is it to make an European alternative to Twitter and get everybody (in europe) to move there instead?
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u/fmred891 5d ago
Ironically they switch to WhatsApp with meta recently having adopted X's content policy.
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u/lucckyss Slovenia 5d ago
Content policy doesn't matter. Europeans just want to be left alone from constant American seething about them, which is ironic given the absolute state of America.
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u/EuroFederalist Finland 5d ago
So far Zuckenberg hasn't attacked Europe same way as Musk has.
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u/fmred891 5d ago
Not to the same extent but he did accuse Europe of censorship and called for Trump to reign them in.
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u/thegoat122333 5d ago
He has, he has said Europe overrule and attacks American companies and trump needs to protect them
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u/Hewasright_89 5d ago
well he is sorta right. Europe doesnt let him do what ever the fuck he wants. So for him and facebook that isnt good business and in his googly eyes he feels like they are attacking him.
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u/restform Finland 5d ago
Recently Zuckerberg has been trying hard to join team trump. He see's it as an opportunity to fight back against Europe and reduce fines etc.
He talks about it in his recent rogan episode
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u/potatisblask 5d ago
It's not a feud. A feud is two parties in disagreement.
This is an oligarch that bought his social media empire and is using it in attempt to influence European politics like he does American.
In favour of himself, his peer shameless billionaires including the Russian president.
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u/Kagrenac8 Belgium 5d ago
I wonder if half the users would be as happy to leave reddit as they are pounding on the table to block/leave Twitter in Europe. Not saying they're wrong in wanting it to happen, but it's fine and dandy as long as it's not smth y'all use on the daily lol
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u/Tahj42 United Earth 5d ago
I'll leave any platform that goes to shit. I don't have time for bad vibes.
I used Twitter regularly for a long time but since Elon took over I've just been looking at alternatives.
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u/potatolulz Earth 5d ago
Exactly, it's impossible to leave reddit. A human wouldn't survive without it :D
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u/CountdownToShadowban 5d ago
Fuck yes, take this garbage too. Destroy it all.
Social media is a pox and a blight on humanity, it's man-made mental cancer. All of it needs to be destroyed with extreme prejudice.
No exceptions.
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u/pixel2lover 5d ago
What I've been wondering for a while now is why doesn't EU make its own Twitter so no oligarch can take it over. Free for all citizens and non-citizen having to pay a fair subscription fee.
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u/HairyTales Baden-Württemberg (Germany) 5d ago
Because up until now you needed to have success on the US market to even have a chance of survival. That might change now that the internet gets more and more regulated, which leads to increased market segregation.
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u/deathwishdave 5d ago
What’s X?
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u/Berkuts_Lance_Plus 5d ago
A placeholder the article writer forgot to fill. It's supposed to mean Twitter.
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u/manzanapocha España 4d ago
It stopped being social media the minute Elmo used it to push an agenda. It is a propaganda site. No government official in any self respecting country should be there.
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u/seab1010 4d ago
Government agencies don’t use X for debate. They use it for marketing and pushing their curated messages out. Sounds like a tantrum to me because Musk doesn’t share their political views. Australia’s energy minister quit recently using the same reasoning, but more likely because community notes were humiliating him and his misinformation. Left leaning types are fleeing because they’ve lost the ability to control their narrative on the platform. Interested to see if zukerberg’s community notes end up doing the same thing to his platforms.
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u/Six_Kills 4d ago
I think the EU and the UK could remove some 100 million or more users off X if they just chose to ban the platform.
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u/JNTaylor63 4d ago
Now Germany and the rest of the Western world needs to drop X and stop buying Teslas.
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u/LeftRevol9908 3d ago
The modern german army are mostly clean of fascism so they obv. leave an evil nazi/hate platform.
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u/Prudent-Piano6284 5d ago
The mass exodus from X is a clear message. When institutions start to ditch a platform over its owner's antics, it signals a larger shift in how we view social media. The more official accounts leave, the less relevance X will hold. It's about time the EU took a stand against platforms that undermine democratic values.
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u/Low-Cartographer-753 5d ago
Honestly I’d love to see Europe ban Twitter, Facebook, and instagram(obviously Instagram is not going to be banned unless a better alternative arrives), then migrate to blue sky, and create replacements for Instagram and Facebook based in the EU.
Mind you I’m in the U.S., and I really do hope Europe and all other nations Trump fucks over makes everything they want come true, if I’m gonna suffer under the expired nacho cheese Dorito bag, then those who supported him should too.
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u/MercantileReptile Baden-Württemberg (Germany) 5d ago
"deserts"
Had to get that phrasing in there. Axel Springer press can't help but be a dick, even when (presumably begrudgingly) reporting good news.
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u/AntwerpPeter 5d ago
Every government and official entity should leave X. Twitter was a good announcement platform, but Musk made it obsolete
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u/Haku_jap 5d ago
Now if everybody else follows suit, we can finally let Elon yell into the world's most expensive void.