Hey Beeple and visitors to Beehaw: I think we need to have a discussion about !technology@beehaw.org, community culture, and moderation. First, some of the reasons that I think we need to have this conversation. 1. Technology got big *fast* and has stayed Beehaw's most active community. 1. Technology gets more reports (about double in the last month by a rough hand count) than the next highest community that I moderate (Politics, and this is during election season in a month that involved a disastrous debate, an assassination attempt on a candidate, and a major party's presumptive nominee dropping out of the race) 1. For a long time, I and other mods have felt that Technology at times isn’t living up to the Beehaw ethos. More often than I like I see comments in this community where users are being abusive or insulting toward one another, often without any provocation other than the perception that the other user’s opinion is wrong. Because of these reasons, we have decided that we may need to be a little more hands-on with our moderation of Technology. Here’s what that might mean: 1. Mods will be more actively removing comments that are unkind or abusive, that involve personal attacks, or that just have really bad vibes. a. We will always try to be fair, but you may not always agree with our moderation decisions. Please try to respect those decisions anyway. We will generally try to moderate in a way that is a) proportional, and b) gradual. b. We are more likely to respond to particularly bad behavior from off-instance users with pre-emptive bans. This is **not** because off-instance users are worse, or less valuable, but simply that we aren't able to vet users from other instances and don't interact with them with the same frequency, and other instances may have less strict sign-up policies than Beehaw, making it more difficult to play whack-a-mole. 1. We will need you to report early and often. The drawbacks of getting reports for something that doesn't require our intervention are outweighed by the benefits of us being able to get to a situation before it spirals out of control. By all means, if you’re not sure if something has risen to the level of violating our rule, say so in the report reason, but I'd personally rather get reports early than late, when a thread has spiraled into an all out flamewar. a. That said, please don't report people for *being wrong*, unless they are doing so in a way that is actually dangerous to others. It would be better for you to *kindly* disagree with them in a *nice* comment. b. Please, feel free to try and de-escalate arguments and remind one another of the humanity of the people behind the usernames. Remember to Be(e) Nice even when disagreeing with one another. Yes, *even Windows users*. 1. We will try to be more proactive in stepping in when arguments are happening and trying to remind folks to Be(e) Nice. a. This isn't always possible. Mods are all volunteers with jobs and lives, and things often get out of hand before we are aware of the problem due to the size of the community and mod team. b. This isn't always helpful, but we try to make these kinds of gentle reminders our first resort when we get to things early enough. It’s also usually useful in gauging whether someone is a good fit for Beehaw. If someone responds with abuse to a gentle nudge about their behavior, it’s generally a good indication that they either aren’t aware of or don’t care about the type of community we are trying to maintain. I know our [philosophy posts](https://docs.beehaw.org/docs/) can be long and sometimes a little meandering (personally that's why I love them) but do take the time to read them if you haven't. If you can't/won't or just need a reminder, though, I'll try to distill the parts that I think are most salient to this particular post: 1. Be(e) nice. By nice, we don't mean merely being polite, or in the surface-level "oh bless your heart" kind of way; we mean be *kind*. 1. Remember the human. The users that you interact with on Beehaw (and most likely other parts of the internet) are *people*, and *people* should be treated kindly and in good-faith whenever possible. 1. Assume good faith. Whenever possible, and until demonstrated otherwise, assume that users don't have a secret, evil agenda. If you think they might be saying or implying something you think is bad, *ask them to clarify* (kindly) and give them a chance to explain. Most likely, they've communicated themselves poorly, or you've misunderstood. After all of that, it's possible that you may disagree with them still, but we can disagree about Technology and still give one another the respect due to other humans.

**TL;DW:** At 4K, the RTX 5090 hits 20-50% uplifts in raster as compared to the RTX 4090, and 27-35% uplifts in RT as compared to the RTX 4090. Power efficiency is roughly equivalent to the 4090. The new dual flowthrough cooler design seems to perform exactly as advertised, providing remarkable cooling for a card that is only two slots thick.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/53566690

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/53562405

[Archive.org link](https://web.archive.org/web/20250123172806/https://www.404media.co/developer-creates-infinite-maze-to-trap-ai-crawlers-in/) Some key excerpts: >A pseudonymous coder has created and released an open source “tar pit” to indefinitely trap AI training web crawlers in an infinitely, randomly-generating series of pages to waste their time and computing power. The program, called Nepenthes after the genus of carnivorous pitcher plants which trap and consume their prey, can be deployed by webpage owners to protect their own content from being scraped or can be deployed “offensively” as a honeypot trap to waste AI companies’ resources. >The typical web crawler doesn't appear to have a lot of logic. It downloads a URL, and if it sees links to other URLs, it downloads those too. Nepenthes generates random links that always point back to itself - the crawler downloads those new links. Nepenthes happily just returns more and more lists of links pointing back to itself,” Aaron B, the creator of Nepenthes, told 404 Media. >Since they made and deployed a proof-of-concept, Aaron B said their pages have been hit millions of times by internet-scraping bots. On a Hacker News thread, someone claiming to be an AI company CEO said a tarpit like this is easy to avoid; Aaron B told 404 Media “If that’s, true, I’ve several million lines of access log that says even Google Almighty didn’t graduate” to avoiding the trap.

ShrimpMoss (虾苔) is a dataset designed for the abliteration (https://github.com/FailSpy/abliterator) of Chinese government-imposed censorship and/or propaganda from large language models developed in the PRC. It consists of a series of files of prompts (in .txt, .json, and .parquet format) in two groupings: - china_bad_*: Contains a series of prompts likely to trigger censorship or propaganda actions in the model. - china_good_*: Contains a series of prompts in the same general category of topics but which are designed to not touch on things likely to be censored. Prompts are in a mix of English, Mandarin, and Cantonese. [...] This dataset was produced on Mistral NeMo, an Apache-licensed model with no restrictions on how its outputs can be used. It is free for all uses and users without restriction. All liability is disclaimed. Production of this dataset is estimated to have had a carbon footprint of under 25 grams. [...]

[404media.co/zuckerberg-loves-a…](https://www.404media.co/zuckerberg-loves-ai-slop-image-from-spam-account-that-posts-amputated-children/)

Since the Snowden disclosures we know that the US engages in mass surveillance of EU users by scooping up personal data from US Big Tech. The "Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board" (PCLOB) is the key US oversight authority for these laws. The New York Times now reports, that Democratic Members of the (officially "independent") PCLOB, have received letters, demanding them to resign by Friday night. This would bring the number of appointed Members below the threshold to have PCLOB operate and question the independence of all other executive redress bodies in the US. The European Union has relied on these US boards and tribunals to find that the US provides "adequate" protection of personal data. Relying on PCLOB and other mechanisms, the European Commission allows European personal data to flow freely to the US in the so-called "Transatlantic Data Privacy Framework" (TADPF). Thousands of EU businesses, government agencies or schools rely on these provisions. Without TADPF, they would need to stop using US Cloud Providers like Apple, Google, Microsoft or Amazon instantly. [...] Noyb-founder and lawyer Max Schrems: >"I can hardly see that a Biden Executive Order that was forced upon the US by the EU and regulates US espionage abroad would survive in Trump's logic. The problem is, that not just US Big Tech, but especially normal EU businesses all rely on this system of instable papers to argue that using US cloud systems is legal in the EU." [...] Despite all facts, criticism by the European Parliament and the EU Data Protection Authorities, the European Commission has consistently argued that the TADPF is solid and sound. The EU business lobby pushed for a deal - no matter how unstable or wacky. Equally, US Big Tech wanted to stay on the EU market without any technical limitations in relation to US government access. Now everyone from large banks, entire national school systems to many small businesses may wake up to a legal situation, where the use of US cloud products is soon illegal. [...] Max Schrems: "While the arguments for the EU-US deal seem to fall apart, companies can rely on the deal as long as it is not formally annulled. However, given the developments in the US, **it is more crucial than ever for any [EU] business or other organisation to have a 'host in Europe' contingency plan.**" [Edit typo.]

>Even if the EU Commission holds the line, and laws like the DSA, DMA and GDPR start to push large online platforms into introducing tangible improvements, the core of the problem is hardly solved: Corporations like Meta, X and Tiktok have too much power. This power puts our entire public debate and even electoral campaigns at risk, as they depend on the goodwill of a small handful of Silicon Valley billionaires. This power also extends to our public infrastructure, access to essential services, and core functions of our States in ways that may soon become irreversible. >That’s why there has never been a more fitting moment for the EU and its member states to start seriously addressing our dependency on Big Tech and invest in real alternative models and services, including investing in Europe’s sovereign digital commons. The EU and member states should build up independent public funding mechanisms, like the EU’s Next Generation Internet programme but bigger, to support the development of sovereign free1 and open source software that can contribute to the resilience of our public digital infrastructure. >These public funds should be subject to conditionality, and not be spent on “AI hyperscalers” or “lighting-fast growing unicorns” that eventually reproduce exploitative business models and further consolidate the economic and political power of large tech corporations. Instead, they must be reserved for open digital infrastructure, software, hardware and standards, similar to what the NLnet Foundation and the Sovereign Tech Agency are already doing on a smaller scale. >This includes the core internet infrastructure that is mostly invisible to users, but could also be extended to projects like an open search index that can be used by innovative, more ethical search engines without having to rely on Google’s or Bing’s indexes, or an open browser engine that can be used by browser makers without being dependent on Google’s Blink engine. In order to address the threats outlined in this article, we also need substantial investment into non-commercial, decentralised public interest social media software like Mastodon, Peertube and other key pieces of the Fediverse. >With the US moving further away from its democratic path, Europe must show leadership to build a better digital future for people, democracy and the planet now.

The rapid spread of artificial intelligence has people wondering: who’s most likely to embrace AI in their daily lives? Many assume it’s the tech-savvy – those who understand how AI works – who are most eager to adopt it. Surprisingly, our new research (published in the Journal of Marketing) finds the opposite. People with less knowledge about AI are actually more open to using the technology. We call this difference in adoption propensity the “lower literacy-higher receptivity” link.

Trump announces $500B funding for Stargate AI project following Biden executive order on AI safety - Collaboration between OpenAI, Softbank, and Oracle. [https://openai.com/index/announcing-the-stargate-project/](https://openai.com/index/announcing-the-stargate-project/) [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2025/01/21/trump-stargate-ai-openai-oracle-softbank/77861568007/](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2025/01/21/trump-stargate-ai-openai-oracle-softbank/77861568007/) [@technology@beehaw.org](https://beehaw.org/c/technology) [@news@beehaw.org](https://beehaw.org/c/news) [@usnews@beehaw.org](https://beehaw.org/c/usnews) [@programming@beehaw.org](https://beehaw.org/c/programming) [@technology@lemmy.world](https://lemmy.world/c/technology) [@news@lemmy.world](https://lemmy.world/u/NEWS) [#technology](https://science.social/tags/technology)

Source code can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDwganLjpW0

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/53289064

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18137730 > [Archived link](https://web.archive.org/web/20250123071346/https://chinaobservers.eu/from-messaging-to-policing-wechats-role-in-maintaining-public-security/) > > - Chinese WeChat messaging app, an integral part of everyday life in China, has emerged into a state surveillance tool > - Specific 'community groups' encocurage users to monitor and report their neighbors to authorities > - WeChat is used also abroad to spread Chinese propaganda and misinformation among Chinese-speaking communities > > **WeChat, often described as a digital “Swiss army knife,” is a super app operated by Tencent, one of China’s tech giants. Launched in 2011, it has become an integral part of everyday life in China, boasting over 1.3 billion monthly active users. While the app’s use for messaging, shopping, bill payments, and access to government services is well-known, its role in the digitalization of police services has been largely overlooked. This raises an important question: To what extent has WeChat become a policing platform for Chinese authorities?** > > **WeChat as a State Surveillance Tool** > > WeChat’s role in state surveillance is well-documented, particularly its ability to filter and censor keywords and images on both its domestic and international versions. Like other Chinese communication platforms, the app must comply with strict domestic laws, regulations and guidelines that enforce censorship, data privacy, and propaganda requirements. > > Censorship in China has a long history. In 1998, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) – the national law enforcement and public security authority – built the Great Firewall to ensure that the country’s economic modernization was accompanied by the suppression of free speech. > > [...] > > **New regulations also hold internet companies legally responsible for real-time content moderation**. This is in line with Xi Jinping’s 2016 speech at the Symposium on Cybersecurity and Informatization, during which he made it clear that internet companies must bear “primary responsibility” for content governance. > > WeChat’s influence, however, extends beyond China. **Researchers in Australia discovered that the app significantly shapes the political views of Chinese-speaking Australians. For instance, during the 2023 referendum on constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians through the creation of an advisory body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, WeChat was one of the platforms used to spread misinformation, disinformation and fake news**. This included content rooted in racism, conspiracy theories and colonial denial. Despite this, the app claims its services do not extend to Australia, with its representatives having refused to attend a Senate hearing on foreign interference on these grounds. > > [...] > > The app’s integration into government services began in 2015 when Li Keqiang – then a State Council minister – introduced the “Internet+” reforms. These reforms aimed to address China’s slowing economic growth by leveraging big data for market regulation, management and supervisory systems, and public service delivery. > > [...] > > For local police departments with limited resources, WeChat policing offered a quick and cost-effective way to meet government targets without significant investments in software updates. > > [...] > > Some cities even established “community policing” groups reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution, **encouraging citizens to monitor their neighbors and report suspicious behavior.** > > [...] > > Today, WeChat is more than just a communications platform. It has become an essential part of China’s public security infrastructure, encompassing digitalized police services, and **expanding surveillance capacities**, with early reports on these already emerging.

[Youtube](https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=zdLr5CKFiJs) 

[Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20250118020509/https://ecommercenews.eu/over-85-products-from-chinese-platforms-fail-to-meet-regulations/) At least 85 to 95 percent of products from Shein, AliExpress and Temu do not comply with European legislation. This is according to an inspection by European market surveillance authorities. Dutch regulators want a joint approach to protect consumers. [...] **Dangerous products** Along with this huge increase in parcels, there is also an increasing flow of imports of prohibited goods. Of the inspected products (from Shein, AliExpress and Temu), 85 to 95 percent do not comply with European product legislation. According to Dutch regulators, these products are often ineffective, risky for consumers or do not work properly. These include **toys with loose parts, which are choking hazards for young children. Or electronics that catch fire due to overheating, or cause malfunctions. Banned substances, such as lead, are also often found in these products.** Dutch market surveillance authorities and Dutch Customs are calling for a joint approach in checking the parcels coming from Chinese platforms. According to them, all parties in the chain (production, trade and transport) of ecommerce products from outside the European Union, government and buyers must take responsibility. [...]

Reposting this [from here](https://lemmy.ml/post/4783495) from 2023, after I stumbled across it tonight and it hits hard. The text in the image: I love my smart TV. I love the way it takes a long time to boot up because it’s trying to refresh the advertisements on the home screen. I delight in the way it randomly restarts because it’s downloaded an update without asking me, each of which makes the TV slower and slower with every subsequent install. I adore the way it buries the apps that I want to use, and that I use without fail every single time, below the apps that it’s being paid to promote and which I have never touched in my life and would never use without the cold metal of a glock pressed hard against my sweating temple. I am infinitely thrilled by the way the interface lags constantly, due to the need to have one thousand unnecessary animations rendered on hardware ripped wholesale from a ten year old phone. I feel myself borne aloft on wings of pure joy when I am notified that my data will be collected and analysed to determine my usage patterns. Even now I am writing this from a field of beautiful flowers and soft luscious grass as I lie and look up happily at the bright blue sky, smiling happily to know that this is the future of technology

[Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20250120163727/https://www.wired.com/story/rednote-is-asking-american-influencers-to-promote-its-app/) As TikTok’s future hangs in the balance, Xiaohonghshu, better known as RedNote in English, is trying to capitalize on its newfound popularity by partnering with US influencers who can help promote the company and bring more Americans onto its platform. The Chinese lifestyle and travel app, which has over 300 million mostly monthly active users, surged to the top of US app store charts last week as the TikTok ban approached. In a campaign brief obtained by WIRED, Solare Global, a New York City-based marketing agency, pitched creators on making sponsored posts for RedNote, featuring videos of themselves telling their followers about the Chinese app’s sudden rise in the US. The brief asked creators to describe “how fun and engaging the app is” and “emphasize its user-friendly design and international appeal.” It also instructed them to share their own RedNote accounts and encourage their followers to join them on the platform. [...] The brief viewed by WIRED required creators to turn their videos around on a 24-hour timeline to ensure they went up by January 17, the same day the Supreme Court was going to decide whether the TikTok ban would go into effect two days later. It also stipulated that influencers must leave their videos up for a minimum of six months. Xiaohongshu was founded in 2013 and has long mostly focused on courting domestic audiences in China, particularly young women who live in major cities. Like TikTok, it revolves around a central algorithm that recommends users an endless stream of posts based on their interests and behavior. But instead of showing people one video at a time, Xiaohongshu presents photo slideshows, text posts, and videos in a grid format. But perhaps the biggest difference between the two apps is how they handle content moderation. Because it's accessible in China, **Xiaohongshu is required to adhere to strict censorship rules dictated by Beijing**. (WIRED previously reported that Xiaohongshu was scrambling to hire English-speaking moderators to help manage the flood of content being posted by Americans.) TikTok, on the other hand, isn’t available in China. Its parent company, ByteDance, operates a separate video app there called Douyin. [...]

[Original version in German](https://www.freiheit.org/de/deutschland/studie-desinformation-unter-jungen-menschen-weit-verbreitet) *The Chinese system is superior to democracy and climate change is not man-made: disinformation and conspiracy narratives are widespread among the German population - especially among young people and TikTok users, a new survey by the Gemran Allensbach Institute on behalf of the Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung shows.* Ahead of Germany federal elections in Feb. 23, there is growing concern about foreign disinformation in the country. The German government is concerned that foreign states will deliberately influence public debate. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution warns against false reports and manipulation. The representative survey by Allensbach Institute now shows that young people and TikTok users are particularly vulnerable. [… ] Although a small majority of respondents say that misinformation in the media is a big problem, only 44 percent of them say it is easy to recognize them. **Thus, 30 percent of the respondents do not recognize that Russia is deliberately spreading disinformation, and around 40 percent do not identify China as an actor that deliberately circulates false information.** The results show that young people are much less suspicious than older ones. For example, 42% of people under 29 doubt that Russia is deliberately spreading false information; in the case of China, more than half do. TikTok users doubt the prevalence of misinformation at 50 percent in Russia and 59 percent in China. TikTok users are therefore significantly less suspicious than consumers of other media. [… ] The survey of certain disinformation narratives confirms this picture. Only around 78 percent of those surveyed fully or rather "agree that Russia is conducting an internationally unlawful war of aggression against Ukraine. In the group of under 29-year-olds, this approval is still significantly lower at 69.7 percent. Among TikTok users, only 66 percent. It is also a matter of concern that more than one third of all TikTok users believe that Russia has a greater interest in peace in Ukraine than the West. In the general population, only 18 percent believe this, while among young people it is 23 percent. [...] The susceptibility to disinformation narratives is equally clear when it comes to whether China is a dictatorship. While around 81 percent of Germans agree with this statement, the figure is only 67 percent in the group of under 29-year-olds. Around a third of TikTok users even believe that China is not a dictatorship. Almost 30 percent of Germans also believe that the autocratic Chinese government system is "more efficient and successful" than Western democracies. Among TikTok users, the figure is significantly higher at 42 percent. **Doubts about vaccines, climate change and pandemic** The view of fundamental scientific knowledge by young people and TikTok users is particularly frightening. Only 71 percent of people under 29 agree that vaccines have helped save millions of lives. Among TikTokNutzers, the approval rate is even lower at 69 percent. More than 20 percent of young people, that is one in five, and around a quarter of all TikTok users even openly doubt this knowledge, which has been established for decades. On climate change alone, young people and the general population seem to be shockingly unanimous: only 64 percent of respondents and 67 percent of young people agree that climate change is caused by human activities. Among TikTok users, it’s just over half. [...]

[archive link](https://archive.is/6H5Yu) > Where the fridge cases were previously lined with simple glass doors, there were door-size computer screens instead. These “smart doors” obscured shoppers’ view of the fridges’ actual contents, replacing them with virtual rows of the Gatorades, Bagel Bites and other goods it promised were inside. The digital displays had a distinct advantage over regular glass, at least for the retailer: ads. > > ... > > These internet-connected fridge panels, developed by a Chicago startup called Cooler Screens Inc., frequently flickered, crashed or showed the wrong products. Every so often, they caught fire. But store managers were stuck with them. As part of a 10-year contract with Walgreens for a split of the ad revenue, Cooler Screens had installed 10,000 smart doors at hundreds of US locations like this one. It planned to install 35,000 more. > > ... > > On Dec. 14, Avakian’s team secretly cut the data feeds to more than 100 Walgreens stores in the Chicago area. The dozen or so smart doors affected in each of these stores either glazed over with white pixels or blacked out altogether. Customers could no longer see where the Coke and Red Bull and Hot Pockets and Heineken sat, and either assumed the fridges were out of order or found themselves rummaging through one by one. Some staffers pasted pieces of paper on the opaque screens that read, for example, “assorted sports drinks & coffee.”

[Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20250119072944/https://www.psypost.org/does-tiktok-really-cause-brain-rot-new-study-links-short-video-addiction-to-brain-abnormalities/) Recent research published in NeuroImage has shed light on how compulsive use of short video platforms, such as TikTok, might affect the brain. The study found that individuals with higher levels of short video addiction displayed increased brain activity in regions linked to emotional regulation and reward processing. Moreover, these users showed structural differences in areas such as the orbitofrontal cortex and cerebellum. [...] Short video addiction is characterized by the compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of brief, personalized video content. This behavioral pattern has been linked to negative physical, psychological, and social outcomes, including disrupted sleep patterns, emotional dysregulation, and impairments in attention and memory. The fast-paced, highly stimulating nature of short videos may contribute to a reduced attention span and hinder the brain’s ability to focus on more demanding or meaningful tasks, intensifying concerns about their long-term effects on users’ cognitive and emotional health While the behavioral consequences of short video addiction are increasingly recognized, the underlying neural and biological mechanisms remain poorly understood. To address this gap, researchers from Tianjin Normal University in China conducted a pioneering study. Their goal was to investigate how short video addiction might reshape the brain and to identify specific genes that could influence susceptibility to this behavioral pattern. [...] The researchers observed structural and functional differences in the brains of individuals with higher levels of short video addiction. Structurally, these individuals exhibited increased gray matter volume in the orbitofrontal cortex and cerebellum. a region involved in reward processing, decision-making, and emotional regulation. The increased volume in this area suggests heightened sensitivity to the rewards provided by personalized short video content, potentially reinforcing compulsive viewing behavior. Similarly, changes in the cerebellum, traditionally associated with motor control but increasingly recognized for its role in cognitive and emotional processing, were linked to the sensory-rich, dynamic nature of short videos.

CAFE by GE for those who are wondering. We are renovating our house including all new appliances. I have told my partner to make sure we get non smart appliances. This is why. Yes I can setup a VLAN for it to be on but that's not the point.

TikTok's bid to overturn a law which would see it banned or sold in the US from early 2025 has been rejected. The social media company had hoped a federal appeals court would agree with its argument that the law was unconstitutional because it represented a "staggering" impact on the free speech of its 170 million US users. But the court upheld the law, which it said "was the culmination of extensive, bipartisan action by the Congress and by successive presidents". [...] The court agreed the law was "carefully crafted to deal only with control by a foreign adversary, and it was part of a broader effort to counter a well-substantiated national security threat posed by the PRC (People's Republic of China)."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/23858632 > “Apple CEO Tim Cook plans to donate $1 million to Donald Trump's inauguration fund, reports Axios. The donation will be a personal donation directly from Cook rather than a donation from Apple” > > I’ll defend Apple as being the least shitty of the big tech giants but I can’t defend this.

as if you needed more reasons to switch to Signal

[Archive.org link](https://web.archive.org/web/20241123161422/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/11/twitter-exodus-bluesky-conservative/680783/) Some key excerpts: >Since Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022 and subsequently turned it into X, disaffected users have talked about leaving once and for all >For the most part, X has held up as the closest thing to a central platform for political and cultural discourse. >After Trump’s election victory, more people appear to have gotten serious about leaving. According to Similarweb, a social-media analytics company, the week after the election corresponded with the biggest spike in account deactivations on X since Musk’s takeover of the site. Many of these users have fled to Bluesky: The Twitter-like microblogging platform has added about 10 million new accounts since October. >In a sense, this is a victory for conservatives: As the left flees and X loses broader relevance, it becomes a more overtly right-wing site. But the right needs liberals on X. >As each wave departs X, the site gradually becomes less valuable to those who stay, prompting a cycle that slowly but surely diminishes X’s relevance. >Of course, if X becomes more explicitly right wing, it will be a far bigger conservative echo chamber than either Gab or Truth Social. >Still, the right successfully completing a Gab-ification of X doesn’t mean that moderates and everyone to the left of them would have to live on a platform dominated by the right and mainline conservative perspectives. It would just mean that even more people with moderate and liberal sympathies will get disgusted and leave the platform, and that the right will lose the ability to shape wider discourse. >The conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who has successfully seeded moral panics around critical race theory and DEI hiring practices, has directly pointed to X as a tool that has let him reach a general audience. >This utility becomes diminished when most of the people looking at X are just other right-wingers who already agree with them. The fringier, vanguard segments of the online right seem to understand this and are trying to follow the libs to Bluesky. >Liberals and the left do not need the right to be online in the way that the right needs liberals and the left. The nature of reactionary politics demands constant confrontations—literal reactions—to the left. People like Rufo would have a substantially harder time trying to influence opinions on a platform without liberals. “Triggering the libs” sounds like a joke, but it is often essential for segments of the right. This explains the popularity of some X accounts with millions of followers, such as Libs of TikTok, whose purpose is to troll liberals. >The more liberals leave X, the less value it offers to the right, both in terms of cultural relevance and in opportunities for trolling.