Re: [lp-ca-on] Microblogs for Software Freedom Day

[Blaise Alleyne]

On 03/08/15 02:17 PM, Sergio Durigan Junior wrote:
> On Monday, August 03 2015, Blaise Alleyne wrote:
>> On 03/08/15 01:11 PM, Sergio Durigan Junior wrote:
>>> On Sunday, August 02 2015, Blaise Alleyne wrote:
>>>> I'm not outright opposed to using an account on a proprietary network that 
>>>> can
>>>> be managed from a free software client (like Twitter) as a sort of kiosk 
>>>> for
>>>> reaching other people, *if* we can...
>>>
>>> I understand the argument of "using a Free Software client is OK" (FSF
>>> uses it too), but I think it is not enough.  For example, it is (in
>>> theory) possible to integrate diaspora* with Facebook, so we could also
>>> use a Free Software "client" to justify having an account on Facebook.
>>> Arguably Facebook has many more users than Twitter, so the impact would
>>> be greater there.  I don't think anybody here would support that, though
>>> ;-).
>>>
>>
>> I think there are so many differences though [...]
>>
>> - there isn't a large open source / free software community on Facebook [...]
> 
> But "reaching a target argument" means, in many cases, reaching people
> who never heard about Free Software.  In this case, not having a large
> Free Software community on Facebook doesn't really impose a problem.
> 

Sorry, should have been more specific.

Facebook is your everyman's social networking platform, whereas on Twitter there
is a larger public presence and active community of tech, open source, or even
free software folks. Along this spectrum are people who might have *some*
awareness of free software, and therefore some openness to it (ranging from
"open source" is cool, or open source activists, or even some people who are
conscious and interest in software freedom).

That's ripe "mission" territory -- people who are already open to the message,
or have varying levels of familiarity with it, but they aren't yet committed
software freedom advocates with GNU Social or Pump.io accounts or whatever. So
it's not preaching to the choir, but it's not starting from scratch.

On Facebook, not only would there be far fewer active communities of allies or
people who are "ripe for evangelization" or open to the message like that, but
it's a lot harder to have those public conversations... because Facebook's
system and culture is so much about connecting with people you know, with
friends and family, in a more private way.

So Twitter is a real natural candidate for spreading the message of software
freedom, whereas Facebook seems like it would take so much work for very little
ROI because of the culture and community.


> I know about Facebook's policies on holding posts, and that only
> makes me feel more angry with them.
> 

You and me both... holding audiences hostage... people think hiting the like
button is like signing up for a mailing list, but it really isn't.


>> - Facebook is asking for way more data and setting up private walled garden
>> spaces, whereas Twitter's public by default is a lot closer to posting to a
>> forum on a website (in terms of access at least, not in terms of network 
>> effects)
> 
> The amount of data Twitter asks may be considerably less, but it is
> data, and it is a proprietary software running on the background, and it
> is personal stuff being posted there (through Direct Messages), so for
> me there is no "lesser evil", although I agree Facebook excels in this
> aspect.
> 

Yes and no. You can use Twitter while giving it not much more information that
any online forum that requires registration -- username, password, email, and
any information that's being picked up from requests to the server (like your IP
address or browser/client or whatever).

Facebook, with that level of engagement, the account would look fake and nobody
would see posts.


>> [...] We avoid engaging in the Twitter account directly, e.g. by following 
>> any other
>> accounts, retweeting, uploading photos, etc., so it's mostly if not entirely
>> read only.
> 
> I have used Twitter before, but I confess I have no idea how social
> networks work.  For example, I had the impression that in order to gain
> more follower one needed to also follow people (a la "network effect").
> If we have an account there but don't follow anyone, how is it going to
> effectively help us?  This is not an ironic question: I really don't
> know.
> 

Ah. So, on Facebook that would be true, but not on Twitter.

Facebook "friend requests" are reciprocal -- user A sends a request to user B,
and user B has to accept that request for the connection to be established.

Twitter "follows" are, like GNU Social, one-way. You can follow someone and they
don't have to follow you back. (Facebook has an infrequently used Subscribe
feature like this... but I think most users aren't even aware of it.)

So Twitter follows work just like GNU Social. We don't have to follow anyone for
people to be able to follow us.

A good example of this kind of announce-only account ("read-only" was probably
the wrong term) is Techdirt's Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/techdirt

It's really just an alternative to their RSS feed, just gets no articles posted.
40k people following the account, but they're only "following" 13 people. And
every post has a link to a Techdirt article.

That's what I'd imagine... using an account like an RSS feed on Twitter for the
GNU Social account...


> Heh, it's almost like we have a Twitter account but don't want to have
> one :-P.  But I completely understand this feeling.
> 

haha absolutely. But it'd still syndicate our messages to a much more populous
network, while not embracing the service.


> I am just honestly wondering how effective this Twitter account would be
> with all those counter-measurements in place.
> 

That's a good question, and I was wondering that too.

There are still hash tags. If we're using a hash tag on GNU Social, that'll get
used on Twitter too. I think that's probably the only way people might find the
account.

Or it might be worth a few Twitter specific posts targeted at certain
communities or hash tags... e.g. if something is trending that warrants our
commentary, and we post to GNU Social using the same hash tag that's trending on
Twitter, then Twitter users might still be seeing that.

I'm not sure how effective it'd be. It'd certainly be low effort, so it's not
like we'd be spending a ton of time or energy for no purpose.

But it'd allow us to syndicate messages to a much more populous network with
many ally communities and people who are open to the message, while clearly not
embracing or promoting a proprietary service with all the counter-measures in
place to avoid scandal/incoherence/compromising our message.