Aral Balkan
Your Twitter/X account is a microphone connected to a mixer controlled by a fascist. You can speak all you want. The fascist controls your volume and can mute you whenever he wants. And you might not even know you’ve been muted because you can still hear yourself in your headphones.
It’s not called resistance when your volume knob is in someone else’s hand.
Aral Balkan
@rooftopaxx Football? Really?
RooftopJacks
@aral True, but whether that's sufficient reason to completely abandon football twitter (for example) to the fascists is still perhaps moot.
Aral Balkan
@rooftopaxx @flip0xfff Oh don’t worry, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia now owns the second largest share of Twitter/X after Elon Musk so we know exactly where the Arab Spring folks would end up today if they were to use Twitter/X.
And that’s the problem. We have folks who don’t understand the dangers telling people it’s safe to use.
And in case you think I’m exaggerating the danger, Saudi just sentenced a man to death for his posts:
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/31/1196776390/saudi-arabia-man-death-sentence-tweets
RooftopJacks
@flip0xfff @aral As just one example, which side would you have preferred the Ultras White Knights to have been on during the Arab Spring? Another, which side might you take on the whole Spanish Football Federation debacle? (Participating in the discourse doesn't mean engaging directly with actual fascists in the misguided hope of influencing them)
flip
@rooftopaxx @aral Are you arguing with fascists over there? If yes, how can you be sure you are heard? If you are not, what is your argument?
Aral Balkan
@exception Leaving the problematic framing of the “free world” to one side, I can tell you from my experience that engagement on the fediverse is far higher than it ever was for me on Twitter. Is it the best platform if you want to broadcast to millions of people? No. Is that necessary for a healthy democracy? No. I’d argue we need quite the opposite: smaller, more meaningful, and, essentially, factual communication.
Stefan Thöni
@aral The problem: There is no more open microphone heard by most of the free world.
The possible alternatives are either explicitly made not to be heard widely like the #fediverse or clones of twitter with the same problems all over again.
Aral Balkan
@rooftopaxx @flip0xfff Because https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/111012837073757215
RooftopJacks
@aral @flip0xfff What on earth would give you the impression we weren't aware of that already? The point is whether the territory should be completely abandoned for a culturally insignificant safer space.
Aral Balkan
@maddad @kevinrns@mstdn.social Not to mention, MBL doesn’t just twist arms, he also rips them right off.
Maddad ☑️
Apart from the fact that #Elon ruins everything, It would be really interesting to know how much MBL is twisting his arm now.
The Saudis have almost unlimited wealth, and we all know how #Elon is when it comes to money.
If we were posting this stuff on the twit site, no one would ever see it.
Kevin Russell
Elon doesnt deliver messages that nazis don't like.
Your followers aren't getting your 'tweets'
If you 'tweet' to your 654 followers 7 will see it, because they "interact with you."
You can't ask your followers if they have seen your tweets, because the question isn't delivered.
F'Elon is a standard issue nazi subversive.
Aral Balkan
Daniel Tuttle 🌵
@aral excellent post
Aral Balkan
@volkris @exception https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/111012837073757215
volkris
@exception exactly.
We might get a TON of engagement within our echo chambers. The amount of head-nodding might give a perception that we’re doing a lot of good.
But just engaging with people whose minds are already on the same page does nothing to progress anything.
Stefan Thöni
@aral It is very much necessary to reach people who won't engage and even people who don't want to be reached with political messages. This is because disinterested and badly informed people are a majority of voters, and thereby determine the course of any democratic country. In the physical world it's the freedom to distribute leaflets, put up posters in public and make oneself heard with protests. Such low-cost political messaging is needed in the digital world, too.
Aral Balkan
@knf100 Are you an idiot?
𝕂ℕ𝔽 𝕀𝕆𝕆 ☎️
@aral do you drive a car?
Shoq
@aral And our attenuated voices are a minor problem compared to the impact he’s by making broadcasting some of the worst people on the planet, 24/7. These three cretins below are in my “For You” feed literally all day long. I don’t follow any of them. They’re just pushed in my face. He’s trying to flood the zone with GOP scoundrels and apologists, and obviously skilled operatives are manually directing this campaign. I’ve not yet seen a single reporter cover this.
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