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Every time you post on Twitter, you produce value for the advertisers.

You tell everyone in your network there that it's OK to stay. That you're all helpless to leave.

You tell the people who've lost their jobs, the people who are being hounded and harassed, that they are not important to you.

You know you're going to be ashamed of it later.

Just stop posting.

Do it here, not there. Connect here, not there.

Don't reply, don't like, don't retweet.

Stop feeding your life into the machine.

@evan

or you stay and fight

you tell everyone in your network that it's not okay to surrender spaces to fascists without a struggle

you tell the people who've lost their jobs that we'll resist the new owner using his own wealth and resources

you provide an alternative example for all the normies still there that they don't have to be radicalized and recruited by haters and inciters of violence

John Panzer

@evan @ares I agree with fighting them. But when the “space” is defined by the people and connections and ongoing content, is it actually surrendering to simply, collectively, turn away from Elmo and his thralls? Or is it winning?

@jpanzer @evan

when fascists march in the streets, when they intimidate and kill with weapons and vehicle attacks, when police protect fascists and attack counterprotesters instead, antifascists don't walk away, we stay and fight

there's no obligation to fight, the people who remain in their homes with their doors locked and window shades drawn aren't bad people, everyone can do or not do what's right for them

but there is a role for those who stay and fight, for those who set an example, who show that we will not be silenced without a struggle, even if it seems like a lost cause, even if we don't win

@ares @jpanzer @evan

I'm gonna argue that Twitter is, after all, a business, and that a usefully effective fightback right now is a sustained effort to push it into bankruptcy.

@timbray @jpanzer @evan

sure, nuking the entire site from orbit would be a good thing

unfortunately bankruptcy doesn't accomplish that

bankruptcy lets elmo stop paying creditors while the site shambles along

meanwhile the cesspool grows into a toxic superfund site, incubating the worst of the worst

a metastasizing cancer

@ares @timbray @jpanzer @evan the birdsite is as big as the energy you feed it. The best way to fight it is ostrasizing it.

@Joewood @ares @timbray @jpanzer @evan negative energy is energy. Starvation > ostracization (and easier to spell)

@timbray @ares @jpanzer @evan based on what we know, nothing any of us do is going to hasten or delay the inevitable slide into bankruptcy. It's already in progress.

@ares @graeme_0 @timbray @evan People with a lot of followers publicly switching to alternatives will in fact hasten its demise.

They might well be replaced with, say, Trump — which would just complete the transformation of Twitter into Gab and hasten the exodus of advertisers.

@jpanzer @ares @timbray @evan Trump already said he's not coming back, he's invested in his own 'competitor'. And I don't have a lot of followers, so not really an issue for me

@jpanzer @graeme_0 @timbray @evan

paraphrasing twain, reports of the site's death have been greatly exaggerated

what's your plan b when five percent attrition doubly offset by ten percent unsuspended somehow fails to wipe the site from the internet

@ares @jpanzer @timbray @evan I think the main issue is that people think engagement numbers are at all relevant to anything in this situation. They're not.

@ares @jpanzer @timbray @evan those numbers only matter if you can realistically use them to attract advertising dollars, and Elon very clearly cannot. Unsuspended fash are not going to bring big brands back.

@ares @jpanzer @graeme_0 @evan

I'm pretty convinced that they're facing an existential financial crisis because of the $B/yr in annual interest Elon signed up for, what with Twitter revenue now plunging.

Weirdly, a bankruptcy could have a good outcome, returning to public-company status with less debt, led by neither Jack nor Elon.

But that's clutching at straws, implosion is more likely.

But hey, I could be wrong.

@timbray @jpanzer @graeme_0 @evan

i don't know either, but my napkin math says existential financial crisis may not be how this ends

it's a roughly $5 billion business that breaks even, so $5b revenue (mostly ads) and $5b expense (mostly people)

if half the advertisers and half the expenses are gone, plus $1b in interest on the debt, that's $2.5b in revenue and $3.5b in expense

not good!

now what's that look like if even 10% of the 450m active users pay $8/month to float their excrement to the top of the cesspool?

it looks like a ridiculously profitable business, is what it looks like

@timbray @ares @evan Twitter delenda est? But yeah, Twitter-the-business should go away. Twitter-the-networks need to migrate. (Saying “networks” not “network” because I think it’s a set of loosely connected graphs.)

@ares @jpanzer @evan it is absolutely delusional to think that as a user you have any control whatsoever about what happens on Twitter. It is not a democracy. You don't have a vote. Your disapproving tweets have no effect whatsoever on actual policy decisions. Elon Musk and his band of right wing conspirators are not influenced by you in any way. At best you are a resource for them, a little statistic that they can leverage into earning advertisers' money. At worst, you're a harassment target.

@smn @ares @evan I don't think anybody believes Elon is listening to anybody but sycophants telling him how great he is, nor are users saying things anywhere going to change his mind. Any activity on Twitter itself should be strategic (e.g., getting users to leave).

And if enough users leave Twitter, it isn't a platform. In a social network, the people are the platform. With just the Nazis on Twitter, it's just a way overpriced copy of Parler.

[edited to fix typo: Without->With.]

@jpanzer @evan @ares The idea defending space makes a lot more sense in a physical space, and not when it is activity on a website that, 1, is owned by a fascist, and 2, makes money from activity regardless of intent.

@jpanzer

Don't disagree with @evan
but
• "stop posting" and
• "stop feeding your life into the machine"
can have different meanings.
Stop “feeding your life” definitely.

Ack to @ares !
Physically I am from the “space” which caused the Shoah.
I fight the past at twit and try to create future here with y'all.

I think that ads were Jacks business model and that the one of twit is now different
digitalcourage.social/@sl007/1
The investors who sue twit say he made stock manipulation say he saved $156.000.000 only by first stock manipulation.
He wants to colonize opinions.

I think it is super important that employees and journos continue to amplify all the leaks on the platform and yes, that we fight.

I am in the EU to create awareness and advise about Open Protocols and ActivityPub in the context of Digital Services Act. If twitter becomes a gatekeeper in the DSA, the new model will be destroyed suddenly. Then I can leave to not fuel the ads which _then_ would keep it alive.

digitalcourage.socialSebastian Lasse (@sl007@digitalcourage.social)@alexwinter@mastodon.social Disagreed. - The agenda for twit is absolutely not about money by advertisers. This was the old business model. The new one is • to manipulate stocks • to manipulate opinion • to do the unthinkable again - We can have a complete other engagement on twit than in the fediverse. Personally I use • twit to fight the past • fediverse to tinker the future with you https://neveragain.tech / @tchambers@indieweb.social

@sl007 @evan @ares Yep. I think that, given the situation, anyone who is fighting needs to be very careful of what information they share not just via posts but with the site itself (this is why I left Facebook in 2019). Including but not limited to source IP address.