I’ve been hesitant to open this particular can of worms … but it’s been sitting there, waiting to be opened since I joined as Executive Director two months ago.
As a Canadian, I completely understand the sentiment conveyed within the community that some would prefer we not use Twitter/X and other social media platforms which are problematic in specific countries. This preference led to the decision in late 2024 to stop posting to Twitter.
However, as a decade-long resident of India, I also understand that this decision wasn’t culturally or racially balanced. Since joining as ED, I have been posting to LinkedIn, Twitter, Bluesky, and Mastodon (variably). Each has its own audience, but the response on Twitter tends to be from users in Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinental region, including Nepal.
A quick look at https://nepal.gnome.org/ and one will notice that there is a single social media platform listed on contributor profiles: Twitter.
There is a real safety risk for certain at-risk users on Twitter and I would never suggest we encourage GNOME contributors to use it (or any specific social network). But it is also not our place to tell contributors or users to avoid certain social networks, either. It is apparent that we are alienating an entire region of our global community by refusing to post updates there.
It is my intention to revisit this 2024 decision, and the broader policy of avoiding specific social networks as an act of governance, with the Executive Committee. But I wanted to raise this thread for others to comment in the meantime.
I think it’s a mistake to use X/Twitter for official GNOME communications. Local user groups can, of course, do whatever they want to reach local members, but GNOME exists at the cross-road of multiple nations and groups, and most of them are impacted by the actions of X/Twitter as a company, as well as the actions of the remaining audience left on that accursed platform. GNOME as a project should very much take a stance on what kind of substrate we ought to favour in order to grow our community, and X/Twitter is far too toxic to do so, especially because it lacks any of the moderation tools necessary—unless we also pay for a verified account, which would be terrible for optics.
It is entirely not worth it just to have some nebulous reach that may or may not disappear with the next social media platform.
The GNOME community pushed to drop X/Twitter, so I’d expect a similar effort to go back to it, instead of a top-down fiat from the executive committee.
I think overall, a lot of these projects are better off avoiding volitale platforms like Twitter simply because of the damaged reputation.
Perception is a very powerful tool, and I know that I personally do not like how people would just stick to a platform and put all their eggs in that basket. It’s great the GNOME is also everywhere else, such as Mastodon, Bluesky, and its own website and personally I think that should be enough.
If there is an audience that we are worried about leaving behind, then let’s work on onboarding them to different platforms so that they can participate as well.
As discussed elsewhere, let’s all please try our best to avoid language which others parts of our global community — particularly underrepresented groups, such as the regions and people who are the topic of this thread.
While it would be great to reach out to the underrepresented groups, I worry about the message it would send about the ongoings of how Twitter is ran. It’s one thing if a particular user or maintainers wants to use it, but as a foundation I believe it would be a mistake.
I can appreciate the complexity of this topic, but I don’t think being on X is the right move. Ultimately, what we’re talking about here is whether or not to lend legitimacy to a platform that allows Nazi ideology to flourish, and to me that’s a very easy no. We have to trust that the GNOME community can continue to grow without needing to be directly connected through a site like X (it’s not Twitter anymore).
(sorry)