this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2024
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When you use Twitter/X what you see is controlled by Elon Musk. Elon has already interfered in our politics by using X to boost Republicans and himself. There is no reason to believe he is going to stop at doing this in the US. Elon is already moving on to trying to influence politics in other countries as made evident by wanting to donate to £78,000,000 to Nigel Farage.

Basically no matter what country you live, if you use Twitter/X you are not safe from Elon Musk. He has your data and he can use it to send you micro targeted messages just as he's done to help Trump win.

That is why I'm calling on everyone to work towards getting people who use Twitter/X to move to different platforms. Bluesky is a great drop in replacement for Twitter. Also there's Mastodon which is great and of course I would love to see your friends from Twitter come here to Lemmy!

It doesn't take a lot of your time. The most simple and effective thing to do is create a post saying you'll no longer use Twitter and you are now on Bluesky or whatever replacement app you choose. You can also consider deleting your account. I've read conflicting reports on if your username could be used by someone else if you delete your account so take note of that if you decide to delete your account.

In addition you can tell your friends and family why it's important to stop using Twitter/X. Also it would be great if you can convince them to spread the message farther! Use your own words to describe why it's important to you such as maybe your mental health got better after you stopped using it or you feel you don't want Elon Musk interfering with your country's politics.

Another thing is if you see an advertisement on Twitter/X try contacting the company and demand they stop advertising on Twitter/X. We should not fund disinformation.

If you work at Twitter/X maybe you can consider quitting your job and organizing a mass resignation.

Let's work together and defeat X and Elon Musk's extreme agenda and make the world a better place.

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[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I would get people to stop using Twitter but I don’t know anyone who uses Twitter because I stopped using Twitter.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Maybe you can ask people you know if they know someone who uses Twitter and then try to get them to convenience people they know to stop using Twitter.

[–] Orbituary 3 points 1 day ago

I wish we could do the same for the entire GAFAM set of platforms.

[–] alphabethunter 1 points 1 day ago

Never used twitter. It always seemed quite stupid, and made me think that If a post only took 144 characters (in old days) to be written down, it is definitely not something worth enough to share with the whole internet.

However, I wholly agree on the "patriotic" duty of convincing people to stop using twitter, and facebook, and instagram, and tik tok... But mostly twitter and facebook. We're past the age of soft power and into the age of algorithmic power, capable of impacting impressionable minds with pin-point precision. It's truly a matter of national security.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago

Whenever someone posts a Twitter screenshot on Lemmy, drag treats it like an invitation to discuss the merits of Twitter as a platform.

[–] madthumbs 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And if we're using uBlock Origin to block ads? Have our own influence on the platform rather than be influenced? Both sides of US politics are full of shit and balance each other out to distract us from our real problems

I've been critical of Elon long before it became popular.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

That's a really good point too about using uBlock Origin. Many times advertisements lead to outright scams and if you don't keep your browser up to date you can give a virus without even clicking on or interacting with the ad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malvertising