Erik MoellerNov 11, 2023

The German eXit from Musk's hate platform is real and ongoing.

I'm seeing accounts for newspapers, courts, libraries, radio stations, cities, nonprofits, etc. getting shut down permanently or moved into maintenance mode. This is all very organic, e.g., the city of Cologne had a vote on withdrawal from X:

https://ratsinformation.stadt-koeln.de/getfile.asp?id=956920&type=do

I can barely keep up. Many of these accounts are now on the fediverse. The ones I've tracked so far are in the eXit spreadsheet:

https://bit.ly/eXit

Show threadErik MoellerNov 11, 2023

I'm not seeing a similar domino effect in the US yet, but the complete eXit of the Trevor Project (not active here yet) and the partial eXit of @indivisibleteam could set the stage for more large accounts to follow.

As the Trevor Project noted, X is not a safe platform. Orgs posting on X risk exposing constituents to harm. By stack-ranking paying accounts above everyone else, Musk has worsened abusive behavior, because abusive accounts can pay to amplify their abuse in everyone's timelines.

Show threadErik MoellerNov 11, 2023

It's easy to feel powerless. "Well, what can _I_ do to make things better?"

One simple thing we all can do is help accelerate the demise of X before Musk fully weaponizes it for fascism, hate and abuse.

Please speak up in your organizations, your communities, your networks, and help folks get off X completely.

There's a reverse network effect. Every person or org shutting down their account makes it easier for the next person or org to do the same.

Show threadMichał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@eloquence

> Musk has worsened abusive behavior, because abusive accounts can pay to amplify their abuse in everyone's timelines.

It is considerably worse, in fact. Ex-Twitter subscribers not only get promoted ahead of non-paid accounts, but also they get paid by ex-Twitter for any posts of theirs that get a lot of engagement.

In other words, there are strong incentives to post the worst, most emotionally triggering stuff possible, as that gets engagement, which means pay outs.

Nov 11, 2023 at 11:48pmWeb
Show threadMichał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦Nov 11, 2023

@eloquence so if you're a fact-checking org, you presumably don't pay for the account, spend hours researching stuff before you post, your posts are not amplified as much, and you don't get paid.

If you're a misinfo/disinfo peddler, for a few dollars/month you can churn out a lot of posts, A/B test what "bites" the most quickly, find the golden formula of the day, have your posts amplified, and *actually get paid* for your trouble.

It's obscene.

Show threadJonah SteinNov 12, 2023
@rysiek @eloquence but at least it is relatively transparent. Nothing about what drives engagement is different but at least now no one thinks they are in it for the LULs