Re: Debian's Presence on Twitter (X)
Hello,
I have been asked to join the discussion since I was involved in setting
up some of the twitter accounts in the past.
I recon this has the potential to become a highly political discussion. To
avoid framing it too much in that way, I'd suggest to consider the
question from the point of view of our shared values, the social contract
and the code of conduct.
We have typically been relatively open to relay our news on proprietary
platforms because the message that we are spreading is worth to be read
by everybody, and if we can embark people in a free software journey
because we are posting there, then it's still a net win for our cause
(even if we also bring a few users to those platforms).
That said this was based on the assumption that those platforms were
"safe"[1] both for the users and for the Debian contributors that would administrate
the accounts there. If there are no sanctions for people behaving badly
on those platforms, if mis-information cannot be stopped, then those
platforms are no longer safe and should be avoided.
The recent choices of Elon Musk for X pretty clearly crosses the bar for me.
X is not a safe place anymore. I wonder whether Facebook will not soon
follow given the recent changes at Meta with Zuckerberg's latest attitude.
Now on the "how", I think that Andrew Latham's contribution was very
thoughtful (alas it's the only message that did not get any reply).
We should IMO:
- not drop the account, but simply keep a statement that we no longer want
to be on those platforms due to the unsafe nature of the platform, but
that we keep the account open so that nobody can pretend to be us and
post on our behalf, and point people to more safe spaces
- not relay our news there
- not reply to any notification / request received there
I don't know that we need a vote for this, Debian has typically been
a do-o-cracy and if the publicity/press delegates can stand behind a
statement like the one I'm suggesting, then it's just a matter of
announcing it and implementing it. As far as I know, the dissenters
that I have seen in this thread are not part of the delegated team (and
sometimes not even clearly contributing anything to Debian), and
it's our right to ignore them and do what we believe is right.
Those are my 2 cents.
[1] By "safe" I mean at least as safe as our "code of conduct" asks for:
i.e. to be respected and never threatened. And there must be ways to
sanction/ban those who are not respecting the rules.
--
⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ Raphaël Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>
⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁
⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋ The Debian Handbook: https://debian-handbook.info/get/
⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀ Debian Long Term Support: https://deb.li/LTS
Reply to: