Do you think an European Citizens’ Initiative to ban Twitter in the EU would be beneficial and have a possibility of being successful?
I’m sorry if this is not a good community for this question. If not please point me to one.
Twitter isnt a social media plattform anymore. Its like truth social a plattform for propaganda. And as we do boycott, bann and so on russian and chinese propaganda, we should ban us propaganda too. I think ith that easy. (:
X does not and will not comply with EU rules, and thus needs to be banned until they change (i.e. indefinitely).
I am also fine with escalating fines until the problems are addressed. Say, start with 1000$ and double that every week until they comply, either they do or there’ll be a lot of money.
Not a fan of banning sites. This establishes infrastructure, which a future fascist regime could use for their purposes. Better to strengthen local alternatives and let it happen by itself.
what about restricting use by governments?
people should make choices, governments should be sovereign in as many ways as possible imo… twitter has proven that it’s not an unbiased utility
or perhaps the “primary source of truth” must be elsewhere and may be shared to twitter, but governments must do whatever they can to ensure that citizens primary method of interaction is through sovereign sources - which may mean limited posting to twitter/meta etc, or it may mean marketing
Exactly, govt representatives, journalists and newspapers should at the very least start using alternatives like Mastodon and Bluesky. Let Twitter wither away by itself after that.
Twitter actively pushes some content and hides others.
So it’s controlling what people see with an editorial decision.
The fact that this decision is made by an algorithm is entirely irrelevant.
Therefore Twitter should be fully responsible for any harm caused by what it publishes, and any illegal content.
They can’t claim to be just a platform as long as their algorithm controls what people get to see.If the EU enforced this, there would be no need to ban Twitter.
I’m an American so maybe the rest of you won’t agree with me, but I think the idea is great. We should also ban it here in the US, in Australia, and Mexico, and Canada and, really, the whole world.
Depends what “ban” means. If it refers to them not being able to be commercially active in the EU because they violate EU regulations, sure. So no selling ads, no targeting ads, no selling blue check-marks.
If it refers to preventing people from the EU to access their website through meddling with DNS or similar means, then i am against it. We should be able to access it, but they shouldnt be able to make money off it in the EU.
I do agree.
Some people might need access to those sites for various reasons (journalists making research, keeping in contact with friends overseas, etc.). But we ought to inform the european population about the dangers of using those services, and preferably move politics and country-specific communication (your local police station social media account) onto european solutions.
Cutting off or limiting the profits which american megacorps can make off the european population does also sound like a good idea.
This was the moment where banning twitter turned from a good idea into a non negotiable measure we need to take asap.
I don’t like the idea of banning social media, newspapers, books, or news websites. Even if they go downhill like twitter. Just opting out and ignoring them, will do. If many do it, it will collapse by itself. But there must be a good alternative and that is difficult.
@nuko147 @SchwertImStein Me neither, but politicians should not be using commercial and closed platforms for communication owned by people like Zuck and Musk that earn money with this… That is something I DO take issue with. And i don’t really see how Bluesky is better than X.
Yeah, all politicians in Europe should abandon twitter. And surely all official offices. Many replacing it with bluesky, witch is a wrong move.
Instead of leading the people to an open source and maybe not profit focused platform, they just follow the mass.
The main issue with Twitter is that we will never be able to prove that the algorithms are not manipulating users by shaping a certain narrative. Combine this with the unsettling events of recent months and I feel like we have no other choice than banning this platform in the free world.
Yes, Let’s censor the news we disagree with!
This is not about disagreement but the total lack of transparency and control over potentially hostile and destructive narratives. Right now, what Elon pushes on twitter is borderline hate speech, corruption and fake news. And hate speech is illegal in many countries. It‘s exactly the same situation as with TikTok and USA, who are still likely to ban TikTok. Also, I don’t think Twitter should be banned on the internet level like what China is doing. But as a European I should be able to disable all algorithms and other content manipulation methods when using the service.
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I wrote to my MP asking them to stop using it and to help to get other MPs off the platform. Everyone should write to their representativea in government asking them to do the same.
Fuck Twitter but not sure a ban would be a good thing
Banning fascists instead of accomodating them is absolutely the right thing to do. It’s accommodating them that got us into this mess.
@starlinguk @turtl If we do what the bad people do, are we the bad people? (censorship)
Nope. Paradox of tolerance.
I’m not a believer in any form of censorship. That’s not how you fight against shit ideas or products.
Also, what would be next? Ban people not voting for the right candidate and then, those wearing socks the wrong color? According to who? That’s a dangerously slippery slope…
I’m sorry if this is not a good community for this question. If not please point me to one.
‘Buy from EU’ as I see it is not ‘force people to buy from EU’ it’s more about ‘encourage people by showing them EU alternatives as honestly as possible’ (they’re not perfect, nor are they always as feature-rich as the US alternatives) ;)
hear hear
Not a fully formed opinion yet; but since X is ran in a way that encourages populism, misinformation and extremism, yeah. Maybe it could make it harder for extremists to connect and recruit new people. But if that is the goal, banning X is not enough. Platforms like Telegram are also popular for harboring extremists. So it would probably need a widespread effort across public platforms to be regulated and better moderated.
the difference is that telegram is a chat application rather than a public space. i’ve been on telegram for 10 years at this point and i’ve never gotten so much as an invite from people i don’t know. the owner is iffy so my friend group is trying to migrate away but none of us have ever seen the things telegram is famous for. i’m not even sure i know how to get shit like that to show up. on twitter it’s in your face as soon on you log in.
You make a good point. I also used Telegram some years ago and never gotten invites to questionable channels, although I think you can search for channels in the app. But another way to learn about them is through influencers advertising them on social media like Twitter, facebook, insta etc. which brings us full circle xD
on twitter it’s in your face
I wrote a lengthy paragraph and realized that I don’t know how bad it is, and how to act accordingly. I agree with another person saying, that they are against bans on media. Maybe the EU could offer a compromise: Abide by some fancy schmancy laws that address content moderation or get lost. But then again, I do not trust politicians in the EU parliament to a) understand the technology and it’s limitations b) be interested in this, since there are many conservatives who could actually benefit from twitter being in the state it’s in.
