Petition to Remove the Canadian Government from Twitter | Hacker News Reader

Petition to Remove the Canadian Government from Twitter

ourcommons.ca

82 pointsoalders42 comments

So TikTok gets banned in the US for abstract potential influence on topics related to China and most Americans sign off on it.

Twitter is being actively manipulated by a person who has expressed interest in the elimination of the independence of Canada and people think this is an overreaction??

TikTok is secretly manipulated by the CCP, and requires US based executives to sign oaths to uphold their propaganda:

https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/14/tiktok-forced-staff-oaths...

Twitter is not being “actively manipulated”. It is probably the least manipulated platform, considering the extreme censorship that was normalized on Twitter, facebook, reddit, etc. Twitter is the closest to neutral and free speech. So yes this is an overreaction.

Sometimes I really wonder what reality people live in...

Elon musk quite literally bans topics and terms that he doesn't like on a whim.

There's a rather lengthy account of all it here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_under_Elon_Musk

Even if we buy into the premises that Elon doesn't manipulate Twitter, he actively posts about removal of Canada's sovereignty.

If the CEO of ByteDance was actively posting TikToks saying he is so excited for the US to be China's new province what would the US do?

Fingers crossed Canada does the right thing and dump twitter

Almost the entire machine learning community that publishes opensource medical datasets and models... amongst other things, is on twitter.

This all feels more emotionally motivated than logically motivated. I.e. Instead of fighting kremlin trolls and helping fact check via community notes (which has been quite effective), they're gonna let it all get worse because they're mad at the owner.

Twitter's not fixing the problem -- how can its users? The only logical move is not to play.

Community Notes are not long for this world, and even if they were it wouldn't fix a thing: https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-says-hell-fix-community-notes-...

There is no Twitter anymore. Not even a smoldering wreck where it used to stand.

The owner is the problem. The only option is to leave (edit: just as you would any other controlling abuser).

The owner is part of a regime that is actively threatening Canadian sovereignty, so I think it's fair for them to do things "because they're mad at the owner"

> Almost the entire machine learning community that publishes opensource medical datasets and models... amongst other things, is on twitter.

More due to the inertia of network effects rather than inherent merit.

Indeed, what is Twitter doing for the machine learning? Absolutely nothing per se, just giving a performant platform to connect. Could have been Myspace just as well, or Linkedin.

You can fight Kremlin trolls as much as you want. They don't care about your opinion, they're paid to post, arguing with them just boosts their engagement metrics, and people who agree with them will retweet and ignore you anyway. You can't win this one and the community notes have so much delay that few will see them.

Meanwhile the arguing will boost those posts to your followers as well and spread the reach.

It doesn't seem logical to me either.

Ideological, political, emotional, group-think, etc.

I've spotted plenty of misinformation published by/on every platform I've spent time with, including Reuters.

I can see logic in a petition to get the government to use a more open/decentralized platform that is more accessible and not controlled by a potential adversary, but this doesn't seem like it's about expanding access to the CA governments information, it seems like it's about controlling narrative and not having the government associated with a narrative these people don't like.

Actually on second glance I think it's about both.

I'm all for the government using more decentralized networks and platforms, I don't frankly care whether they post or not to X, and I get the sense that anyone who does isn't doing so based on logic but on ideological and narrative control.

Re: the efficacy of Community Notes, Musk claims that Community Notes are being manipulated by governments and "legacy media" and that he's working to "fix" that.

I'd say the owner is making it worse, and it's not the responsibility of people to invest more of their effort into his platform when they can build up something they can feel way more ownership of. Bigger isn't always better. The people who would miss out on things they don't want to miss out on aren't switching, but I haven't seen a single person who did switch expressing regret. Logically speaking, that's not what you see when people do something motivated purely on emotion ;)

Twitter is a political platform, given its close ties with the highest levels of the US government. Basically what you’ve told me is that the entire machine learning community is aligned against Europe and Ukraine, and that Europe needs to develop its own internal ML community to balance this risk.

Considering that X is owned and operated by an agent of a government that has threatened Canada, seems like a good reason to me. That same person actively supports Neo-Nazis in Europe, which makes it an imperative.

Actually, at this point, most of the EU governments should probably drop Twitter.

X is the first domain in my life that I legitimately believe needs to be blocked by remaining democratic nations. Alternatives exist.

> X is the first domain in my life that I legitimately believe needs to be blocked by remaining democratic nations.

Amazing that removing censorship causes you to have this reaction. That’s not really in line with democracy, because democracy requires free speech, and Twitter is the best platform for it.

Moderation is different than censorship. But a smart person would have known that. Hacker News is moderated, didn’t you know? Guess we should swap it out for a cesspool as well by your logic.

Community Notes will be censored by the way coming soon. Didn’t you hear? Might want to read a bit before you make bold claims.

A smart person would admit that moderation is most commonly used by social media platforms as a euphemism for obvious censorship and suppression of political opposition. Grouping HN’s light approach with what old Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, and the rest do isn’t reasonable.

You won’t convince me of this so we are at an impasse. Freedom of speech is not the freedom to force everyone to listen to it or hear it. Users should always have the ultimate control over what they are subjected to.

>the government's continued use of X legitimises and directs traffic to a platform that no longer prioritises fact-based, accessible public communication.

What does this mean exactly?

There's no indication the Government of Canada's profile on X will stop showing their own messages.

Granted, they might find themselves Community Noted, since the Canadian government (NB: any government, really) can also be prone to amplifying misinformation, conspiracy theories, and harmful rhetoric.

But they want Canadians to believe a new community-regulated platform, prioritizing accuracy and safety - as defined by people throwing tantrums at the mere possibility of diverse perspectives - is going to be more reliable, accountable, and accessible?

Peak performative nonsense. And I expect no less than several million signatures.

How about just "Petition to Remove the Canadian Government"?

This will not happen until Twitter loses its reach. Getting the word out in an emergency is far, far more important than potentially legitimizing a white supremacist platform.

Government have ways of getting the word out besides Twitter. It isn't necessary, it's just convenient because it doesn't require budgeting.

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