Valerie
Dan GillmorInstead of begging a sociopath CEO to please, please, please let them keep using his increasingly terrible website for research and other activities, these orgs and people should be organizing to move what they do to the open web. https://independenttechresearch.org/letter-twitter-api-access-threatens-public-interest-research/
ask330 🪨🦣@dangillmor It is pathetic at this point.
Michael Zimmer@dangillmor A large number of these signatories and organizations do reaseach specifically on/about Twitter and rely on Twitter data to understand that platform. Simply moving to "the open web" isn't a solution.
@michaelzimmer That's fair. But it's clear that Musk is taking control of what people can know about the platform, and that genuine transparency is not on his agenda. We need to work to move the entire ecosystem out of there.
Kate Starbird@dangillmor How about we do both? Our team is both diversifying our research program (developing new data streams from other platforms and the methods to analyze them) and advocating for Twitter to remain open for researchers.
@katestarbird Both for now, sure, but my goal is to get everyone off of that platform for good...
@dangillmor I'm with you there! I put my account to sleep in November and have moved my personal and professional activity over here.
Doug BostromHats off for principled decisions, especially when they're directly and signficantly costly as here.
My thought is that when one wants to study the behaviors of the John Birch Society, only the John Birch Society will do as one's research subject.
To study extremophiles needs entering extreme environments.
Hopefully the Twitter environment will fizzle such that we don't miss anything happening there of great importance to the rest of our world.
Andrew@dangillmor @katestarbird Yeah, but you have to do it in order, right? Sure, they could move their research projects here, but (a) not at a week's notice and (b) the fediverse userbase is not as large or representative as Twitter's, so the research would suffer. Get the common users away and the research projects will move on their own, but nobody's sticking around on Twitter to be part of somebody's dataset.
se_ph 🕊️@dangillmor 😅 speechless 🤐
Bruce Mirken@dangillmor Their website has a "contact us" link from which you can send them an email. Just saying. 😊
Henry Farrell@dangillmor @mmasnick As a signatory (not organizer) I don't think that's the right way to to think about it. Lots of good reason to move from Twitter etc (as I have!) but also lots of people who aren't moving, and aren't likely to soon, despite these reasons. As long as these platforms continue to play an important social role (which researchers can't change) we need to understand what is happening on them, which is about to become a lot harder.
Rebekah Tromble@dangillmor What a demeaning response. No one's begging Musk. We're pointing out that this policy has serious consequences that the company appears to have overlooked. Will the campaign change Musk's mind? No. But policymakers need public campaigns like this to help justify their own action (DSA in the EU, PATA in the US, etc.). There's a bigger picture here.
@dangillmor Want to bring down Twitter? DSA fines will help with that.
Anil Dash@dangillmor the thing is, academics and researchers have to investigate the world *as it is*. Right now, the fediverse is _less_ inclusive than Twitter; researchers need to make sure those people and their voices and cultures are understood.
WTF@anildash @dangillmor I concur
rik@anildash @dangillmor
@fil that's what i hear too.
if you're trying to understand signs of life within a sh*tstream, you need to walk thru sewage
@fil that's what i hear too.
if you're trying to understand signs of life within a sh*tstream, you need to walk thru sewage
Kevin Rutherford@dangillmor One for you @sciety ?
Brandon Silverman@dangillmor Two things…(1) like it or not, there are still a lot of communities that are very active on Twitter and we shouldn’t give up on trying to study & understand them because we don’t like the new ownership, and (2) sometimes letters that are addressed to one person might really meant for someone else.
ProIsh@brandonsilverman @dangillmor Sure, but we 100% can voice our opinion by ignoring and staying off twitter. People say "Elon wins if we leave!" He's already won, he bought the thing. I don't have to support him even as insignificant as it is. I'm happy here.
Jim LoveI guess so. I just don't want to be there :-).
@brandonsilverman Yes, I was too harsh. But my point remains: What he's doing there is toxic. And everyone who cares about reducing poison in our public conversation need to work not just to understand it but also to actively boost alternatives.
Martin Johnstone@dangillmor he's a despot. Oh Elon! You're just an insralled Kissinger eera plaything
Grandpa Don
Patricia Kayden@dangillmor Or move to alternate sites like Mastodon. There are alternatives to the Bird.
SearingTruthSadly Elon Musk is indeed an amoral sociopath fellow citizen Dan Gillmor.
Despite his claims of wanting to save the world, which I believe he one day did, he became heinously vicious and cruel.
And now forwards autocracy in place of democracy.
ST
"Kindness and caring is the natural and universal emotion of all human beings.
Until we are convinced from it."
SearingTruth