alt Hacker NewsEFF is leaving X
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That statement pretty clearly shows that they have certain ideological concerns that they value more highly than the kind of stuff we tend to think the EFF primarily cares about (digital privacy, open source, patent trolling, etc).
Through that lens, I guess it makes sense that they see TikTok, Instagram, and BlueSky as worth their time and presence but not X.
Nothing recent made me feel quite as old and out of the loop more as the slowness with which I realized that this is about x.com (Twitter), not x.org (the windowing system).
If they justify it in terms of reach and impressions then say they will still be on BlueSky and Mastodon then you know it's purely ideological.
Which is fine but just be honest about it.
This reads as very performative. You don't have to choose between posting 10 times a day or deleting your account; you could just post less or use it for major updates.
>Our presence on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok is not an endorsement [...] We stay because the people on those platforms deserve access to information, too. We stay because some of our most-read posts are the ones criticizing the very platform we're posting on. We stay because the fewer steps between you and the resources you need to protect yourself, the better.
Does this not apply to X users?
Their logic for why they're on TikTok and Facebook seems sound to me, but doesn't that same logic apply to X? I kept waiting for the explanation but it never came...
> We'll Keep Fighting. Just Not on X
Yeah, somewhere where regular people that aren't terminally online won't ever have the chance to see it. This is a dumb decision. I'd very much like for open, distributed social networks to win, but that's not a reality we'll be living in anytime soon. X, for better or worse, gets you eyes, more so than any other alternative social media.
We're staying on IG because that's where the queers hang out. What.
I used to be a regular donor to EFF but stopped when it became clear they had lost sight of their mission.
Astounds me that anyone is still using that platform after seeing how Musk treated the engineers when he took over.
These are interesting numbers for engagement but don't mean as much without equivalent stats for the other platforms. It's a little like when a news story quotes only a percentage (but not the absolute figure in $) or vice versa.
The world that hackers grew up in just doesn't exist anymore.
The EFF is leaving a platform voluntarily? Because they disagree with the politics of the platform? What?
I don't know man that seems pretty lame. Stick around and argue with people if you think twitter is so bad now.
This seems completely unnecessary and performative. I have a hard time understanding how reducing their reach could possibly be helpful to the goals of the organization. I'm definitely going to keep donating to them, but I'm concerned.
On the topic of leaving X but not TikTok and Facebook: I think being principled but pragmatic is necessary more so than ever. If you always pick absolutes, you'll quickly find yourself helping nobody. It requires a right balance, otherwise you end up justifying the means to an end. Certain principles cannot be comrpromised, others are a bit of a luxury. It's a moving target. It's a fuzzy target. You'll never quite get it right but you just keep trying. I think I'm most wary of those who think too rigidly and would see this as an intolerable contradiction.
I wonder if the message of eff doesn’t resonate with the younger generation who did not see the OS wars first hand and instead always saw Microsoft as a cloud provider and Apple and Google as the OS providers.
Are they leaving because of low views? This means they are more concerned about views than anything else? I thought any sane company wants as much exposure anywhere no matter the political stance or other views.
So they are chasing engagement, and X isn't giving them the attention they think they deserve.
The golden days of the sentinels driving traffic without you paying for it are over, and they won't come back.
I tend to almost only use X now. I really can't use Facebook or Instagram since the introduction of "ad breaks" because I haven't given them ability to give me "personalised ads".
Don't get me started on tiktok...
I follow lots of accounts that have low views, thanks for considering me not worth a simple cut and paste once in a while.
>The math hasn’t worked out for a while now.
Have the costs to post to X grown too high? The salary of someone with the technical know-how to work the social media platform is too expensive? How does the math compare with Mastodon? Do you know about buffer.com?
I started giving to EFF about 10 years ago. It's pretty much the first and only organization I have regularly given to. It always felt like a non-political organization focused squarely on the right to access. Especially with its support of the Tor project. But this news has me confused and other commenters seem to be seeing virtue signaling or politically motivation.
Interesting timing - just days after the announcement that Nicole Ozer will be taking over for Cindy Cohn as the Executive Director of EFF.
Is there any site that keeps track of companies/orgs and/or noteworthy people who have left "X"? I've noticed some pretty significant orgs leaving in the recent year or two and have repeatedly wondered if there's some kind of list out there. I mean, it would just be a handy list to show people when I say something like "more and more people are leaving that garbage site" and they want receipts and I'm like... "uh the province of New Brunswick was the latest I saw" >_> I found this list of celebrities in the meantime, at least: https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/celebrity/twitter-celebr...
>"But You're Still on Facebook and TikTok?" >Yes. And we understand why that looks contradictory. Let us explain.
But then there's no explanation really.
There does seem to be evidence that X (formerly Twitter) is a dying platform, but what surprised me here is that longtime platforms like Snapchat, Reddit and even Pinterest get more MAUs than X - and this is more October 2025:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-net...
It would be really interesting to learn if brands and advertisers are seeing the same thing?
Well, at least they realize they're hypocrites.
I don't understand, does it cost them something to copy/paste their posts to X?
This is unfortunate. Elon despite his flaws opposes mass surveillance and censorship, and that's the general sentiment on X at the moment. He just retweeted the Telegram founder 20 hours ago. [0]
I'm afraid we're being divided and conquered. The people pushing for mass control are attempting to reframe the fight for digital freedoms as a "leftist" talking point, so that they can later ride the populist wave and use its momentum to kill online free speech and general purpose computing altogether. Perhaps the EFF has been compromised, because it should not be falling for this trick. It would be wise to use all of the information channels available to reach as many people as possible.
Interesting that they are leaving the most uncensored social media site, but saying on the most tightly censored sites. Makes me wonder what their vision for the internet really is.
Pretty asinine considering posting to Twitter costs… $0.
Also a surefire way to get people to take you less seriously when as an ostensible public benefactor and sometimes-whistleblower in a particular sector you make said asinine move for purely political virtue signalling purposes.
‘Stay in your lane’ comes to mind.
So the nazi salute wasn’t enough to make them drop X, but the view count is?
If we would talk about my local pizza restaurant here: Very nice move.
For EFF: That's ~15 years too late, and way too specific. Their job (without them ever having realized in fact) was to generate some force against these centralized commercial walled gardens, where we have our public discourse, with some opaque algorithms deciding what goes up and what goes down.
Pretty interesting to see the drop off in impressions - Twitter/X really is just a megaphone for Musk to deliver his "probably next year" wrt various product releases for the Elon-gelicals who bid up Tesla stock to meme levels.
I really can't imagine the data is even good for training Grok anymore - like if it's such a small subset of neo-nazi supporting folks - how is it even useful?
What is with the constant use of "folks" in "queer folks"? Is it offensive to call them "queer people" now?
Good. Now leave TikTok and Facebook as well. People who care will find out what you are up to, and people who don't won't see you on social media anyway.
I left Twitter, Facebook, et al about a decade ago. And I can assure you: You will never miss any important development.
The notion that we need to plugged into Twitter, X, whatever, to stay up to date is simply false.
I support X as the last major free speech platform even though I agree with the decline of X for everyday users since covid, including Elon's reign. But the hypocrisy of EFF staying on other platforms with questionable commitment to free speech and these obvious woke red flags tells me EFF was conquered by leftists:
"But You're Still on Facebook and TikTok?" Yes. And we understand why that looks contradictory. Let us explain.... Young people, people of color, queer folks, activists, and organizers use Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook every day. These platforms host mutual aid networks and serve as hubs for political organizing, cultural expression, and community care. Just deleting the apps isn't always a realistic or accessible option, and neither is pushing every user to the fediverse when there are circumstances like... Your abortion fund uses TikTok to spread crucial information."
Obvious political bias. If we can't talk across the aisle, we're doomed.
I still can't get used to Twitter being called X. What horrible branding.
But isn't this capitulation? If you're not there raising your voice, who will? I know it sounds like a hopeless situation, but with consistent activism, I believe things can and will change.
I closed my X account Tuesday evening after the US-Iran ceasefire was announced. Something just snapped finally and I realized there’s no value in monitoring the situation and all these accounts are just monetizing my energy and attention with no value provided.
The only social media I’m going to keep for now is Reddit and YouTube because I think it’s still a net positive for the educational content, but even those are on the chopping block for me. The whole Internet is being capitalized into junk food, people just push out sensationalized low calorie garbage because they get paid per view. It’s sad to see.
My first thought was that 5-10 posts a day is just too much. Can't expect everyone to read everything and also react to each one.
> To put it bluntly, an X post today receives less than 3% of the views a single tweet delivered seven years ago.
That's a huge drop. It could be changes to the algorithm or it could be their former readers are no longer on X. I suppose it's both.
Their decision to leave X seems mostly centered around engagement numbers. Or at least, that's the reason they led with. And I'm not sure that I believe the numbers they're throwing out.
> To put it bluntly, an X post today receives less than 3% of the views a single tweet delivered seven years ago.
Okay. View counts are public now, but not available on older tweets. But replies, like, and retweet counts are, and shouldn't they scale similarly?
I'm just eyeballing it, but when I look through the EFF's twitter feed now, I see 20-100 likes as typical, with the occasional popular tweet that hits a couple hundred. When I look at their 2018 tweets - you can use the `from:EFF until:2018-04-01` filter on twitter search - the numbers are... The same. Aside from the occasional popular tweet, most other tweets are in the neighborhood of 20-100 likes. Similar for replies and retweets.
I don't understand how this could be if the tweets are being seen 30x less.
I worked at EFF from 2001 to 2019.
When I started, EFF was a very effective coalition between (primarily) progressives and libertarians. This had largely been the case since EFF was founded in 1990 by both progressives and libertarians. When people would call EFF a "left-wing" organization, I would correct them. It wasn't a left-wing organization, it was a big tent and had consistently had very significant non-left-wing representation in its membership, board, and staff.
This was perhaps comparatively easy to achieve because EFF was mainly working on free speech and privacy, and both progressives and libertarians were happy to unite around those things and try to get more of them for everybody, even without necessarily agreeing on other issues.
Maybe "both progressives and libertarians" doesn't feel like that big a tent in the overall scheme of things, but it was a good portion of people who were online by choice early on and who were feeling idealistic about technology.
I'm sure everyone reading this is aware that, as American society has become more polarized, there are fewer and fewer institutions that are successfully operating as big tents in this sense. Somewhat famously ACLU is not. EFF is also not.
EFF is still doing a lot of good work in a non-partisan sense. However, the way that they think and talk about that work, in terms of what motivates it or what it is meant to achieve, is now a predominantly left-wing framing. If you don't have a left-wing worldview, you're at least not going to be culturally aligned with EFF's take on things, even if you agree with many of their positions and projects.
This should not be taken to mean that they never take on non-leftist causes or clients or never successfully work in coalition with non-leftist organizations. It's most about how they see what they are trying to do.
I again want to be clear for people who are saying "it's no surprise that a political organization is political" that EFF's politics and rhetoric are not what they were in earlier decades. There are many interpretations of that that you might take if you agree with some of the changes (you might feel that they became more politically aware or more sophisticated or something), but the organization's coalition and positioning is really very different from what it was in earlier eras.
It's very apparent to me that EFF was more skillful at staying neutral on a wider range of questions in the past than it is now. I remember hearing the phrase "that's not an EFF issue" spoken much more frequently in the earlier part of my time at the organization.
(Another more neutral interpretation is that the Internet successfully became a part of everyday life, with the result that more and more historically-offline political issues now have some kind of online component: so maybe it's more of a challenge to deliberately not have a position on a range of "non-tech" politics because people are regularly pointing out how tech and non-tech issues interact more.)
I experienced these changes as an enormous personal tragedy, and it's deeply frustrating for me if people would like to pretend that they didn't happen.
I'm still rooting for them to win most of their court cases.
Everything old is new again... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tSOTQPUQoU
This reads like the classic Youtuber whose annoyed their views dropped (this almost always amounts to 'people don't actually like your content as much as you thought').
>We posted to Twitter (now known as X) five to ten times a day in 2018. Those tweets garnered somewhere between 50 and 100 million impressions per month. By 2024, our 2,500 X posts generated around 2 million impressions each month. Last year, our 1,500 posts earned roughly 13 million impressions for the entire year. To put it bluntly, an X post today receives less than 3% of the views a single tweet delivered seven years ago.
It's incredibly unlikely someone at X shoved the EFF in a 'low visibility' bucket. It's much more likely they've simply updated their alogorithms and the EFF doesn't hit some engagement metric.
They're still getting 13 million impressions by simply posting tweets, I really don't understand 'taking a stand' here. Instead of 13 million they'll simply get 0... The opportunity cost in the worst case is a human being copy pasting a tweet, there's plenty of software to schedule posts across platforms though, which would make it essentially free even in user time.
Imo, they had a 'personal stance' motivation, and dug deep for any reason to argue for it.
I cancelled my X subscription this month, despite them trying to offer me a lower price. The platform is a mixture of bots and people fighting over how many followers they are getting. I tried to find interesting groups actually making things and sharing with each other, but they don't exist IMO. Most said groups are ran by a few "elites" and then the strategy for anyone else is to do the "engagement bro" garbage - posting for the sake of posting - and overall the platform seems dead I'm the ways that matter to me.
For what it's worth most social media is in a doom spiral right now. It's a mixture of technical issues surged by LLMs and social reasons related to the highly polarizing landscape we are in today. I don't have good solutions and I personally am perfectly fine not being involved in this chapter of the book of the Internet, even if it is the final chapter.
I was recently asked about our (Oxide's) disposition to Twitter on the Peterman Pod[0], and the rationale for why we're no longer active there is pretty simple: the platform has become a cesspool of hate -- and it's antithetical to promoting a business (or any message, really). Aside from the morality of it (which is significant!), the hate itself is repugnant; it's not something that normal people want to be a part of in the long term.
My grandparents were pretty WASPy, conservative people who lived in northern Idaho. And they hated the white supremacist/neonazi groups up there with a burning passion. They were of an age to remember people going off to fight in Germany and Asia against that kind of ideology.
They would have been absolutely appalled and ashamed to see a business leader throwing those salutes and backing it up with talk of a "white homeland" and similar comments.
I find it deeply dismaying that people consider that "just politics" or that opposing it is "ideological". We can argue all day about the proper rate of corporate taxation or debate the best way to implement environmental regulations, and I will not consider you a bad person if you disagree with me. But the kind of crap coming out of that guy? That's beyond politics.