Proposal to quit the platform X

International
1

Hi,

Regarding what happens on X and more generally the influence of Musk and the danger he represents for global commons, I would like to propose OFN to quit X.
So we need to discuss :

  1. the opportunity of this
  2. if we decide to quit, what actions should we take in terms of communicating this decision and create accounts on alternative social media

**1. make the decision:

The deadline is short if we want to follow the timing of January 20 to quit. I posted on Slack and there were some feedback in the comms’ channel and also from the Stewardship circle that agreed with quiting X. Can you express yourself here if you find it’s not a good idea to quit X please?
Is it a good way to make the decision? NB : I am not familiar with decision making process at the level of Open Food Network. So please let me know if something should be done more formally.

2. Once the decision is made :

I put in the [following document]** (Nuage CoopCircuits)

A) Process proposed:

B) Comms content proposal

Open Food Network quits X. #HelloQuitX #20January

X has become the site of a biased public debate and a veritable machine for manipulating opinion. We cannot be complicit in this.

Having played a role in the US election campaign with the help of X, Elon Musk is now turning his attention to the rest of the world. And X is his tool of choice for destabilizing democracies.

Let’s not let this happen. Let’s weaken X. Let’s leave X en masse, on January 20, the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Open Food Network is developing digital commons. We can use an analogy to illustrate: Open Food Network is a free software, with totally open code, which belongs to everyone, or to no one (depending on how you look at it). Elon Musk, a single man, with a few billion, had the ability to take the control and radically transform the politics of a platform in a matter of days, because it was a completely centralized digital platform.

What Musk did with Twitter, he couldn’t do with the Open Food Network software because our software is a commons, a shared resource. This just goes to show how profoundly political the choice of digital tools we interact and work with is.

Choose the digital commons!

Join us on Mastodon [+ link]

=> I can do almost all the actions listed above. I also can easily create an account on Mastodon and keep it (a bit) alive, because I am already in charge of social media in the French instance.

=> I need your contributions for two things:

  • creating the account on Bluesky if you feel it’s useful. I’ve never been there and don’t feel to invest another social media platform.
  • reviewing and amending directly in the document the text proposed for communicating about this because English is not my mother tongue and the text is the result of an automated translation.

Thanks a lot and happy to read your opinion and contributions soon.

2 Likes
2

Hello,
Maybe I should ping some people here? :slight_smile: @tschumilas @rebeccar @NickWeir
Thank you for your feedbacks :slight_smile:

3

Thanks @berengere.batiot
I like your process for this. It feels completely aligned with the OFN sociocratic process :slight_smile:
I have made some suggested changes to your document. My additions are in bold. I am happy for my changes to be ignored or further changes.

I will ask @Jo_daSilva and @dfam97 to check that they are happy with your proposal

1 Like
4

Also pinging @amber @dthomas @Serenity_Hill

5

Hi all,

I support moving off of X. I think other platforms, like LinkedIn or Bluesky, have a lot more traffic and conversations related to food systems and it makes more sense to focus our engagement there.

I’d like to propose a different approach to the communication that is something more like-

As a mission based organization that uses our values as a guiding light, we have made the decision to thoughtfully consider where and how we communicate. Moving forward you can continue to follow the work of the Open Food Network on (insert social link). We look forward to collaborating and communicating with you all there.

I know this is quite a bit different than the original message. Politics in the US is so complex, I like the idea of keeping the focus on OFN and our values.

2 Likes