[OSGeo-Discuss] Is OSGeo presence on ${one-letter-asocial-media} still desirable?

[Laurențiu Nicola]

On Tue, Jan 21, 2025, at 13:27, Even Rouault via Discuss wrote:
> ok, so now the owner of that platform considers it is fine to make Nazi 
> salutes in front of the whole world. I do *really* think OSGeo should 
> stop any activity on that platform and remove all mentions of it.

I hesitated on replying to this topic since the political climate has been so polarized, and people get branded as Nazis or worse just for trying to bring nuance into a discussion. But if nobody's going to do it, things will get even worse. There's a bit to unpack here, though.

First, was that a Nazi salute? Only Musk would know for sure, but the gesture is centuries-old (at least, I suspect more) and the context doesn't feel quite right. For what it's worth, many Jews and Jewish associations weren't bothered by it, and I'm inclined to trust them on that. He should apologize, but given his personality, that's not going to happen.

Second, do we like Musk? I don't like him, I think he's an asshole, and I vehemently disagree with many things he's been saying, but he was essentially correct on others, and was still attacked for them. If we can't accept when Musk is right, then we're probably not going to see when "our side" is completely wrong. Still, this is a good reason to not want to be associated with him.

Third, is X a bad social network? It's bad, but it's not worse than the others. I think it's overall less biased than the alternatives, and I've seen worse (i.e. a lot worse than Nazi salutes) stuff on Mastodon and Bluesky. I also quite like their "community notes", which work reasonably well in practice, and are non-partisan.

Fourth, should we delete our X account? No, because of the squatting risks.

Fifth, should we start posting again on X? I think we should, for visibility, but I understand why you'd feel icky about it, and cross-posting to multiple places can take too much effort (we should keep Mastodon either way).

Sixth, should we remove the Twitter icon/link on our homepage? I'd say yes, if we stop posting to X, otherwise no. But we should add Mastodon and update the icon and URL if we keep it.

Finally, I don't think this is about X, but rather Trump. I dislike him even more than Musk, but as far as I know, he's been democratically elected with more support from all demographics compared to his predecessor, and that deserves at least a modicum of respect. His voters must be, for the most part, relatively reasonable people, and I'd rather be too kind to them than burn bridges. Especially since I'm inclined to burn just as many bridges to his opponents, for exactly the same reasons.

So to sum up:

 - I'm not convinced that was a Nazi salute, but I don't think it matters too much,
 - I think we should be posting on the X account, but if we don't, we should remove the link
 - we have to add a Mastodon link
 - if we feel that using X means endorsing Musk and Trump, we shouldn't post there
 - I've seen so many "worse than Musk" people on the other social networks that I can't endorse them in good faith either

Laurentiu