People hate a service, but they depend on it so much they create whole codebases to cope with it.
Depending on things we hate is a tragedy.
How about just admitting the things you hate? Then you can just drop it and live a happier life.
Unless you are of course somehow required/forced to use X, then I'm all for projects like these.
And there is no bskycancel.com yet.
Also, I only adopt new browser plugins very sparingly, because the chance of some random extension getting bought out by a shadowy ad and malware firm is way too high, and Mozilla doesn't assure me with the level of vetting they do (nonexistent, compared to F-Droid or any mainstream linux distro.) Why is this such a problem for Mozilla? They even try to make it difficult to get extensions from anybody but them, so a third party extension store that actually does due diligence is basically off the table. I can't even install extensions straight from a developer's github, which wouldn't be as good as a trusted 3rd party repo, but still better than Mozilla's status quo. In fact, so called userscripts loaded through one trusted extension actually feel a lot safer than normal extensions.
That being said, many public figures have not made the same judgement and post their communications there.
Should I just stop informing myself on the public discourse because the place it happens got taken over by a shady character?
I think using code to liberate the discourse from its would-be manipulator is the most reasonable thing to do and a reflection of true hacker ethics.
Remember when Reddit mods made a whole show of virtue signaling about banning links to X, but most of those same subreddits’ top content (and 20% of the front page) was screenshots of X?
A lot of people are unwilling to withstand even a bit of discomfort to stand up for their supposed principles.
There are still people who only post stuff on Twitter whose opinion I kinda want to hear, but I'm not creating an account there.
I hate X and have never used it.
Any link that resolves to Twitter will instantly become a closed tab; still waiting for that happier life.
Though that's quite different from X; while the issues with YouTube are mostly plain old enshittification, the issues I have with X are more political (thus, I do hate it).
Child pornography and dictatorships are good, and there should be more of it.
Similarly archive.org maintains copies of the Fox News website in the past. I don't see that as sad. If anything, it's a way to keep these sites accountable because they can't just memory-hole the content they once hosted.
These are two very separate things. I hate X. That doesn't mean I hate the few remaining people on there who still post things I wish to see. It's an annoyingly good source of artwork. Many migrated/dualpost to Bluesky, but far from all.
For some similar real world example:s I hate (all?) the local grocery stores and other shops I buy food from. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop buying food from them. I'm not a fan of any of the local electronics shops, but sometimes they're the only choice if I want a local warranty, which I wouldn't get if I imported one. The actually good option in both of these cases simply doesn't exist in the first place, and doing nothing is rarely a desirable option.
* No autoplay on playlists: https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/no-playlist-auto...
* No translations and AI dubs: https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/youtube-no-trans...
* No YouTube shorts: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hide-youtube-...
* More videos on the home page / smaller thumbnails: https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/youtube-tweaks/ (to be fair, it could probably replace the "No YT shorts" one)
Not sure how safe those are, but since they only require access to data for youtube domains I assume if there was a leak it would not be too bad.
Since X is still highly popular, will you ever reconsider your position?
Just curious, not looking for a fight or debate.
I'm not trying to be difficult, but I'm not quite sure what this means! In literal terms, I want the ability to read tweets, see threads and replies, and view a user's tweets chronologically, and I don't think the second and third things are possible on X.com without an account. I don't want an account for various reasons, including that I don't want any temptation to become a regular or active user.
Of course! It's always important to consider the agenda behind any media.
> Since X is still highly popular, will you ever reconsider your position?
I don't see how popularity is a factor. It has data I want in a system I don't support, so I exfiltrate the data.
If it's that important, you'll see it elsewhere in no time at all.
I normally use nostr more because that really is decentralised. Also mastodon. Though I don't like the short message twitter style blogs anyway. So Lemmy really is my favourite (too bad about all the tankies though)
Though I tend to hang out at fediverse instances that are more lgbt specific and not that political, I'm just sick of politics, I don't believe in democracy anymore since my own country went 30% to the extreme right party. I just hang out with like-minded people and avoid everyone else.
And no, BS will most likely not be your place. Even if you're welcomed now you'll have to keep walking on eggshells to make sure you never violate the current and every-changing unwritten rules and regulations and dictions and dogmas or you'll be quickly ousted as not being pure enough. Especially if you don't want to talk politics - and with 'talk politics' I mean agree with and verbally support the current thing. If you're one of the ideological puritans who're in the forefront of ousting infidels you'll sooner or later be hoisted on your own petard so the only way to win that game is by not playing it.
In lgbt spaces it's much more free for someone to be as they are, the only thing that's not allowed is judging others. No phobias, no ageism etc. And we don't generally talk about politics other than how to survive in the current climate.
I would most equate it with rave culture I think. That openness and acceptance of being different.
I mean in the sense that literally everything is political, yes, I suppose so. Certainly if you ask, say, a Marxist, then yes. But in that sense, so is, say, a chocolate bar.
In the more narrow everyday sense of the word, though, nope, my mere existence isn't a political matter.
It isn't, but neither is your existence 'lgbt' since you are not defined solely by your sexual orientation. You may have been gathered - by whom? - under this moniker but had nobody ever thought to create an identity category related to sexual orientation your existence would not have been changed in any way. It is the fact that one of your characteristics has been turned into a 'membership card' of a specific identity which makes 'lgbt' political.
I'm left-handed and as far as I know - ... - there is no identity category related to handedness (yet). If one were to be dreamt up by someone and that person decided I would be counted in as a member of this identity group and be represented by some self-appointed spokesperson my handedness would have been politicised. It would not make a whit of difference as far as my 'existence' were concerned, I'm left-handed with our without a related identity group.
(Ditto for left-handed people to some extent; less of a thing these days, but there _was_ a time they were kinda treated as an outgroup in many places.)
Here's one of the many ways the Open University answers the question on what politics is:
Among the broadest ways of defining politics is to understand it as a ‘social activity’ – an activity we engage in together with others, or one through which we engage others. Politics, in this sense, is ‘always a dialogue, and never a monologue’ (Heywood, 2013, p. 1). A similarly broad (or perhaps even broader) definition is offered by Arendt (2005), who argues that politics does not have an ‘essence’ – it does not have an intrinsic nature, or an indispensable element according to which we can definitively, and in all circumstances, identify something as political. Thus, there are no quintessentially political acts, subjects or places. Politics, rather, is the world that emerges between us – the world that emerges through our interactions with each other, or through the ways that our individual actions and perspectives are aggregated into collectivities. [1]
[1] https://www.open.edu/openlearn/society-politics-law/what-pol...