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Comment by jmull | Hacker News Reader

It seems to me that it was Twitter that got political.

That leaves everyone using it with no non-political options -- there are political implications whether you stay or go.

Leaving it now (when a bunch of others are going too and the front man has recently been dropping bombs) is probably the less political option -- especially in the long term if you think the site is going to get more radical.

Bonus points for moving to a federated alternative, since you can move away from big tech (which is more of a principled stand and/or tactical move than a political statement, IMO.)

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Twitter was the canonical radical/activist political tech co before the new owner, featuring all sorts of suppression and biasing. It’s not any more or less now, probably less overall since it seems to be avoiding more suppression, it’s just that one side is generally upset and the other generally happy that it changed teams.

This announcement does tell us w3c is a politically motivated org that disagrees with the new regime.

Antisemitism has a team? Which team is that?

I keep seeing these claims on HN despite the fact that it's been widely reported that Twitter has complied with more government take down requests since Musk took over than it ever did before.

The faithful care not for your evidence; all that matters is what Dear Leader _says_.

> This announcement does tell us w3c is a politically motivated org that disagrees with the new regime.

Yes, with the "Musk regime". He often likes to claim that he fights for freedom of speech, but even his authorized biography (from Isaacson) is pretty open about him not having a coherent concept of it, and after the acquisition he reinstated / banned accounts depending on his mood of the day. Musk doesn't like to bind himself by rules, but that turns out to be a pretty important thing for journalism.

Twitter as a reaction to more restrictive moderation policies doesn't really surprise me. Like I see little reason in censoring some of the comments to this submission:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38548128

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38548531

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38548342

This looks more like people making views they don't like or agree with invisible rather than the posts breaking specific guidelines.

2/3 comments are readable, one isn't even downvoted.

In addition, flags are generally user imposed. a Mod can flag whatever they desire, but enough users with enough karma can flag a comment, and enough flags will auto-flag until/unless a mod overrules it.

Neither of these are "censorship", even in the colloquial sense. One means someone disagrees with a comment, another means that it doesn't adhere to the spirit of the site.

It always was political. Only that the politics of Twitter changed and now they do not like them.

Fair. You can call it "it's gotten more politically controversial" and the sentiment remains.

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