European Tech Sovereignty

(crossposted from !exclusive_public_resources)

Musk’s changes to Twitter:

• must register as a member to get read access to content
• members no longer see a non-biased chronological linear timeline; an opaque algorithm decides what to prioritise on the timelines, subject to Elon’s hard-right manipulation

It’s perhaps fair enough that boot-licking pawns decide to subject themselves to quasi-brainwashing manipulation. But when GOVERNMENTS use Twitter, people with a legitimate interest in gov communication are forced to register on an exclusive walled garden where they will come under influence of the extreme right (and thus climate denial among other garbage; hence the crosspost to !climate_action_individual).

How to fix this using open data laws:

Public content published on Twitter legally must be openly accessible to all people. Perhaps not by default but certainly by request. This means individuals can submit an open data request to gov agencies who use Twitter, requesting a copy of all content they publish on Twitter. The gov legally must satisfy the request. All tweets must be in an open machine-readable format (csv, json, or xml).

The dataset is “dynamic”, so I believe future updates must be added to the open data. But what I’ve seen in practice is the gov is not diligent about pushing the updates. They may need to be nagged. If they are nagged enough, perhaps they will decide Twitter is not worth it.

BTW, all of this applies to Facebook as well, noting that Cambridge Analytica is why Trump took power in 2016.