2022-04-25 Twitter

Woke up from a nap, and suddenly everyone is talking about Elon's acquisition of Twitter. And suddenly everyone is scrambling to migrate to the Fediverse (Mastodon, Misskey, Pleroma, etc.). I'm certainly not against the idea that more people should be using free and federated social platforms, but the reason they suddenly migrate seems not well-supported at best.

What I mean here is that Twitter was not, in any way, a better platform before this deal. I'm not even talking about what Elon Musk wants to do with Twitter here. I simply do not care -- what is the difference between one group of extremely wealthy individuals controlling a platform for public speech and another group / individual doing the same thing? Sure, the current moderation policy or whatever may agree with your specific political ideals more, but keep in mind that what they care about is not anything about you. They care about their returns on their investment. This equally applies to Elon Musk, as well. However much you believe he is going to "destroy" the platform, or, on the opposite side, "free" you from "woke" politics, remember that he does not care about you, or "open-sourcing" the algorithm, or even his proclaimed "freedom of speech".

The saddest thing to me is that for some reason, the online speech of the entire world is dependent upon one single company. To different groups of people, a change in the leadership of this company means the difference between night and day. This is not what the internet should be. However Elon Musk or any of the previous owners says about this deal, remember that all of them are trying to absorb everyone's content under the control of a single entity. This is what we should fight against, not the specific design, moderation policy, or political ideals of one single company that controls everything.