this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2025
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Do you think an European Citizens' Initiative to ban Twitter in the EU would be beneficial and have a possibility of being successful?

I'm sorry if this is not a good community for this question. If not please point me to one.

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[–] superkret@feddit.org 5 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Twitter actively pushes some content and hides others.
So it's controlling what people see with an editorial decision.
The fact that this decision is made by an algorithm is entirely irrelevant.
Therefore Twitter should be fully responsible for any harm caused by what it publishes, and any illegal content.
They can't claim to be just a platform as long as their algorithm controls what people get to see.

If the EU enforced this, there would be no need to ban Twitter.

[–] dergewerkschafter@feddit.org 12 points 8 hours ago

Twitter isnt a social media plattform anymore. Its like truth social a plattform for propaganda. And as we do boycott, bann and so on russian and chinese propaganda, we should ban us propaganda too. I think ith that easy. (:

[–] cherrari@feddit.org 5 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

The main issue with Twitter is that we will never be able to prove that the algorithms are not manipulating users by shaping a certain narrative. Combine this with the unsettling events of recent months and I feel like we have no other choice than banning this platform in the free world.

[–] Caymankid71@lemmy.world -3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Yes, Let's censor the news we disagree with!

[–] cherrari@feddit.org 6 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

This is not about disagreement but the total lack of transparency and control over potentially hostile and destructive narratives. Right now, what Elon pushes on twitter is borderline hate speech, corruption and fake news. And hate speech is illegal in many countries. It‘s exactly the same situation as with TikTok and USA, who are still likely to ban TikTok. Also, I don’t think Twitter should be banned on the internet level like what China is doing. But as a European I should be able to disable all algorithms and other content manipulation methods when using the service.

[–] adm@lemm.ee 6 points 19 hours ago

I worry that these actions of banning platforms with ultimately break global awareness. We still have things like bluesky but Twitter was the platform for awhile. As the US slowly alienates and isolates itself from the rest if the world well find ourself ultimately less informed. Granted, Twitter is now a cesspool but generally I don't like seeing our information channels close.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 10 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

I'm an American so maybe the rest of you won't agree with me, but I think the idea is great. We should also ban it here in the US, in Australia, and Mexico, and Canada and, really, the whole world.

[–] Nukul4r@feddit.org 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Not a fan of banning sites. This establishes infrastructure, which a future fascist regime could use for their purposes. Better to strengthen local alternatives and let it happen by itself.

[–] rippersnapper@lemm.ee 2 points 6 hours ago

Exactly, govt representatives, journalists and newspapers should at the very least start using alternatives like Mastodon and Bluesky. Let Twitter wither away by itself after that.

[–] pupbiru@aussie.zone 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

what about restricting use by governments?

people should make choices, governments should be sovereign in as many ways as possible imo… twitter has proven that it’s not an unbiased utility

or perhaps the “primary source of truth” must be elsewhere and may be shared to twitter, but governments must do whatever they can to ensure that citizens primary method of interaction is through sovereign sources - which may mean limited posting to twitter/meta etc, or it may mean marketing

[–] nuko147@lemm.ee 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't like the idea of banning social media, newspapers, books, or news websites. Even if they go downhill like twitter. Just opting out and ignoring them, will do. If many do it, it will collapse by itself. But there must be a good alternative and that is difficult.

[–] rraggl@mastodon.nl 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

@nuko147 @SchwertImStein Me neither, but politicians should not be using commercial and closed platforms for communication owned by people like Zuck and Musk that earn money with this... That is something I DO take issue with. And i don't really see how Bluesky is better than X.

[–] nuko147@lemm.ee 1 points 4 hours ago

Yeah, all politicians in Europe should abandon twitter. And surely all official offices. Many replacing it with bluesky, witch is a wrong move.

Instead of leading the people to an open source and maybe not profit focused platform, they just follow the mass.

[–] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 21 points 1 day ago

This was the moment where banning twitter turned from a good idea into a non negotiable measure we need to take asap.

[–] arifinhiding@feddit.org 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

If the ban brings a new alternative in place, then yes. I'm not from the EU or the USA, but I'm used to Mastodon and Lemmy. I don't mind non-american alternatives. The EU should have its own competitive social media for the rest of the world.

[–] pupbiru@aussie.zone 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

this has been done in a few countries but running a government mastodon instance and giving departments and official accounts profiles… i kinda love that, but wish mastodon supported domains like bsky does

id love to have like education@gov.au, treasury@gov.au, etc but afaik the way mastodon works is you need to devote an entire domain to it, so they’d have to be like treasury@social.gov.au, which is kinda verbose :(

[–] arifinhiding@feddit.org 1 points 9 hours ago

True. That's unfortunate, i feel that.

[–] tfm@europe.pub 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] arifinhiding@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Unfortunately, as I understand it, Bluesky has an identical algorithm with Twitter. Ive lost patience with how American-led technology has taken the world's attention for granted. What I had when I was on Bluesky was reading the same information being viraled and repeated, and the same prominent users from Twitter absorbing almost all of my attention. Bluesky promoting the same users since 2010 made the world smaller for me and I'd rather be on Mastodon where smaller creators are somewhat boosted. Moreover, spaces on Lemmy are teaching me a lot about the European Union, and since I'm an outsider and I don't live in the west, I deeply enjoy being educated rather than sensationalized with the same conspiracy theory. I firmly believe there's a larger world than what an American-led algorithm often portrays. But, I acknowledge that everyone is different and I understand that they might still have preferences that are different to mine. Nonetheless, I still want an algorithm that actually shows me niche topics all around the world.

[–] tfm@europe.pub 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The cool thing on bluesky is that you can create your own algorithms through custom feeds. Also to my knowledge the following feed is purely chronological.

It's surely not as decentralized and free as Mastodon but it's heck of a lot better than the centralized platforms.

[–] iamkindasomeone@feddit.org 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Is there something against an approach where we only store data, like we did for the last centuries. But how the data is aggregated and presented is not defined. There could be various frontends using different (public) algorithms. This could work pretty easy with decentralised networks like the fediverse.

[–] tfm@europe.pub 1 points 8 hours ago

Isn't that exactly the way Bluesky/ATprotocol works? You can store your account/data wherever your want (PDS) and the Relays/Firehorses are responsible to aggregate posts.

I also like ActivityPub more but Bluesky is definitely easier to use.

[–] arifinhiding@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago

I think I'll check it out again at some point.

[–] Tw4tnoM0r3@lemmy.cafe 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

We should ban it for politicians. Why on earth would you use a for-profit foreign platform for official communication?

[–] iwasnormalonce@lemm.ee 7 points 1 day ago

I wrote to my MP asking them to stop using it and to help to get other MPs off the platform. Everyone should write to their representativea in government asking them to do the same.

[–] NotLemming@lemm.ee 4 points 1 day ago

I think companies etc should be banned from sharing news and updates there. Eg. A lot of public transport news is shared there, sometimes exclusively. It would be ideal if people could get access but nothing official or important was facilitated. Imagine if we were having to access truth social to find out if public transport was cancelled due to a snowstorm - well, now xitter is truth social.

[–] paolo3000@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago

I’d be in favour of this. I think we’ve seen how fickle the masses are. They need to be shielded from the fake, toxic shit that is social media

[–] KokusnussRitter@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Not a fully formed opinion yet; but since X is ran in a way that encourages populism, misinformation and extremism, yeah. Maybe it could make it harder for extremists to connect and recruit new people. But if that is the goal, banning X is not enough. Platforms like Telegram are also popular for harboring extremists. So it would probably need a widespread effort across public platforms to be regulated and better moderated.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 2 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

the difference is that telegram is a chat application rather than a public space. i've been on telegram for 10 years at this point and i've never gotten so much as an invite from people i don't know. the owner is iffy so my friend group is trying to migrate away but none of us have ever seen the things telegram is famous for. i'm not even sure i know how to get shit like that to show up. on twitter it's in your face as soon on you log in.

You make a good point. I also used Telegram some years ago and never gotten invites to questionable channels, although I think you can search for channels in the app. But another way to learn about them is through influencers advertising them on social media like Twitter, facebook, insta etc. which brings us full circle xD

on twitter it's in your face

I wrote a lengthy paragraph and realized that I don't know how bad it is, and how to act accordingly. I agree with another person saying, that they are against bans on media. Maybe the EU could offer a compromise: Abide by some fancy schmancy laws that address content moderation or get lost. But then again, I do not trust politicians in the EU parliament to a) understand the technology and it's limitations b) be interested in this, since there are many conservatives who could actually benefit from twitter being in the state it's in.

[–] tfm@europe.pub 5 points 1 day ago
[–] Saleh@feddit.org 36 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Depends what "ban" means. If it refers to them not being able to be commercially active in the EU because they violate EU regulations, sure. So no selling ads, no targeting ads, no selling blue check-marks.

If it refers to preventing people from the EU to access their website through meddling with DNS or similar means, then i am against it. We should be able to access it, but they shouldnt be able to make money off it in the EU.

[–] ekky@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 day ago

I do agree.

Some people might need access to those sites for various reasons (journalists making research, keeping in contact with friends overseas, etc.). But we ought to inform the european population about the dangers of using those services, and preferably move politics and country-specific communication (your local police station social media account) onto european solutions.

Cutting off or limiting the profits which american megacorps can make off the european population does also sound like a good idea.

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 38 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

X does not and will not comply with EU rules, and thus needs to be banned until they change (i.e. indefinitely).

[–] vrojak@feddit.org 8 points 1 day ago

I am also fine with escalating fines until the problems are addressed. Say, start with 1000$ and double that every week until they comply, either they do or there'll be a lot of money.

[–] Mysterious_Tea@feddit.org 9 points 1 day ago

Can I answer: "Yes" loudly enough?

[–] BenLeMan@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago
[–] chmod755@feddit.org 4 points 1 day ago

I'd prefer tariffs on Twitter and Tesla in all EU nations until the Trump tariffs are removed --> income should be used to fund European social media and European car production

[–] vesi@lemm.ee 21 points 2 days ago

Yes. Freedom of speech? There is no true freedom of speech there so limiting X is not a violation of it

[–] hikuro93@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Not a twitter/x or bluesky user, never really my type of preferred social media. So I wouldn't miss it.

However we must realize the most crucial factor about X in Europe, the fact that it's a clearly compromised and biased network, highly subject to corruption, division and disinformation.

Would the average person participate and support X if it was owned by a russian oligarch? And that russian propaganda was quite obvious within the social platform?

Some would, sure, but the majority would mistrust it and be far more critical about potentially false information.

So yeah, it should be categorically banned from EU nations. Not because I hate it, but because of the dangers of division it represents to our society. Specially when for those who like X-style platforms there's already "non-regime" alternatives.

it kinda is owned by a russian oligarch

[–] turtl@lemm.ee 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Fuck Twitter but not sure a ban would be a good thing

[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Banning fascists instead of accomodating them is absolutely the right thing to do. It's accommodating them that got us into this mess.

[–] Jonas@mastodon.nl 1 points 6 hours ago

@starlinguk @turtl If we do what the bad people do, are we the bad people? (censorship)

@buyfromeu

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 8 points 1 day ago

I would rather the users all realize it's a nazi bar and stop using it, but that's never going to happen. Too many people are oblivious, don't care, or are pro-nazi. Shutting down the nazi bar with the power of the state is acceptable to me.

[–] jlh@lemmy.jlh.name 13 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

A tiktok ban style law would go against freedom of speech. Better to let the EC and the courts ban Twitter based on the existing, sensible DSA law.

[–] WheelcharArtist@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Banning a platform doesn't take the right to speak freely

[–] jlh@lemmy.jlh.name 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yes, that's what the DSA says.

But it's not ok to ban a website just because there was a petition for it, there needs to be a better reason than that.

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