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Comment by jrm4 | Hacker News Reader

There is a VERY GOOD reason to do this, and this is because they are still very powerful and prevalent.

Closing your eyes and ears and going NAAH NAAH NAAH I'M GOING TO PRETEND IT DOESNT EXIST is a wildly stupid way to approach things like twitter when they are still so influential.

I appreciate experimenting with "boycotting," but when the dust settles and the thing is still very much there, you have to engage with that fact.

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Depends if you thought Twitter ever had any value at all ever. I once made an account, hung around for 2 weeks,then never opened it again. So since musk owns it, it has no more or less than relevance than before.

It doesn't matter "what I think of its value" at this stage. It has observable effects that go beyond just me. Choosing to just ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist -- or perhaps worse -- pretending that your non-participation is meaningful, is irresponsible.

> pretending that your non-participation is meaningful, is irresponsible

What's the difference, considering X is riddled with silencing dark patterns?

How is your participation on that network in any way meaningful?

"know thy enemy"

"If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

The big picture is that the vast majority of people are not on Twitter. It is a social network for extremists and the signal to noise ratio is extremely low.

So no, you "have to" do nothing of the sort. If something happens there that's worth reporting on, reputable journalists will write about it.

"reputable journalists"

oh how I wish that were a thing that carried the weight it once did

I pretend 4chan doesn't exist and everything's been fine. Now I do the same with twitter and everything is fine just the same.

I'd say you couldn't be more wrong. Maybe you're doing fine. But both of those places have likely had extreme effects on the world that perhaps could have been mitigated with MORE, not fewer, eyeballs paying attention to what was and is happening there.

Engaging with facts is not exactly the leftist strong suit here.

You're just objectively wrong. There is no reason to entertain a Nazi website. You sound hurt as if you work for X.

This is exactly as intelligent as "if you don't like America, leave."

I neither love nor hate the place; in fact -- yes -- today I dislike it more than I like it.

But again, my like or dislike doesn't matter. It exists and has influence. And for that reason, there are very moral reasons to engage with it even if you think it is evil.

Stormfront also has influence, but I still stay the fuck away.

And even if Twitter is influential, you, Joe Random, will have no effect on anything by engaging with people there. All you are is fuel for the (attention) fire.

As a black person, if I thought Stormfront had considerable dangerous influence, I would quite literally try to join immediately.

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