Maybe the solution is to put a restriction on business, news agencies, and government services from using it?

But that opens another can of worms. A precedence for a governing body to say which platforms can be used for reaching your audience. I'm afraid the change will have to come from the bottom

If anything, I'd phrase it "public service messaging has to operate on platforms which don't require an account to read". But that doesn't solve the problem of general culture on the service

how dare you suggest a cure instead of a bandaid?!

in my opinion facebook and microsoft are worse because you can't optionally avoid them. no matter what you do, you're still paying for microsoft products through your taxes with money that should go into domestic development. facebook is so insideous that in some countries it is the de-facto internet (because it's free to use without a paid internet plan/subscription); all hobby communities that i'm aware of now exclusively live on facebook, and forget your grandma having any other means of contact than through facebook messenger and certain companies and services offer facebook messenger only live support. and as a business owner? you don't have a choice on the matter, facebook (and google) is the only means to advertise nowadays that have actual measurable results on the campaign budget.

twitter? unless you're a creative or a connoisseur of creatives, it actually has a lot less relevance than the current drama suggests, otherwise the big alternative platforms wouldn't have actual relevance and upwards mobility, which they currently do.

Could you elaborate on this angle? I’m not very well versed in the rights of companies operating in the EU, but I’m unsure “freedom of speech” is one of them.

I rather mean "political discourse"

There was Twitter. Apart from advertising, the very good thing it brought was free access to information. But not only getting it, also sharing. So we knew about for example Arab Spring or Umbrella protests and more or less what is going on, before news decided to tell us and how to tell us

Then came Musk, all in white, saying that moderation on Twitter is biased and he's going to bring it more freedom of speech

Some time passes and let's say that now EU does ban X. What's the next logical thing he'll say?

I think it might be something like "see? EU banned X because they didn't like the truth. For the truth, come to me". I'm afraid that banning would rather give him power and echo chamber, rather than fixing what is going on

I'm not against this angle. But IMO evangelization and conversions only really worked when backed by the state

My approach is calmly keep using free platforms, keep degoogling, when sharing information, share the links from those free platforms, so it keeps pinging in general consciousness that these exist. So the next time everyone does suprised pikachu face to what extent our data is used against us, you don't have to say "see? I told you". They come to you asking how to do this, what are the limitations and realities of getting free etc

But, of course, as with everything, diversity is a strength. Some of us should fight, some of us stay calm and keep going on
I think

Yeah, so just as I said - good guys banning social medias is good because they are the good guys protecting the democracy against bad people and so on, and bad guys banning social medias is bad because they are the bad guys censoring the truth from oppressed people or something.

No hypocrisy here :)

So, to save democracy, let's go full North Korea on the platforms we don't like. 🤨

Pointing out their hypocrisy will not help anybody.

I choose to, perhaps naively, think that some people might actually recognize how absurd this is, and hopefully change their opinion :)

The best you can do is sit down and watch this comedy from the sidelines.

Just "watching comedy from the sidelines" can result in one day waking up in a totalitarian hell :/
(Not that my shitposting will change much of course :/)

I don't believe there is any value in X. In fact I'd say it has negative value. However, granting the UE power and legitimacy to censor any website for political reason also has a negative value, and I'm not certain which is lower.

Maybe it'd be an easy choice for the American left, but I'm from the French left. Along with groups such as La Quadrature du Net have been protesting reforms like the aforementioned european directive for adressing antiterrorist contents, of France's temporary ban on Telegram during the riots or the ban of Tiktok in Kanaky during the uprising, and now we're supposed to turn around and say "actually censorship is cool"? Are we to empower those we're fighting in hope that they exclusively use this power against our common enemies? I've left Twitter the very day its purchase by the muskrat was officialized and I've been telling everyone I know to do as much. Sure, a european ruling would give me something I want, but I don't trust in what comes next. There's no way the European Union bans X and don't end up blocking left wing fedi instances like ml or hexbear, as soon as their existence is brought to their attention.

Blocking, yes. Bans can be more, though. When poor opsec gets you defenestrated or shipped to an offshore entertainment facility, it's a bit more than an inconvenience.