166 lines
8.3 KiB
Markdown
166 lines
8.3 KiB
Markdown
---
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date: 2013-10-16T00:00:00-05:00
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title: "About coherence, Twitter, and the Free Software Foundation"
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tags: [en_us, english, thoughts, rant, free-software, fedora-planet]
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---
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The [Free Software Foundation](https://fsf.org) has a
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[Twitter](https://twitter.com) [account](https://twitter.com/fsf).
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Surprised? So am I, in a negative way, of course. And I will explain why
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on this post.
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You may not agree with me on everything I write here, and I am honestly
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expecting some opposition, but I would like to make it crystal clear
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that my purpose is to raise awareness for the most important "feature"
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an organization should have: **coherence**.
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The shock
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---------
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I first learned about the Twitter account on IRC. I was hanging around
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in the `#fsf` channel on Freenode, when someone mentioned that "*...
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something has just been posted on FSF's Twitter!*" (yes, it was a happy
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announcement, not a complaint). I thought it was a joke, but before
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laughing I decided to confirm. And to my deepest sorrow, I was wrong.
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**The Free Software Foundation has a Twitter account**. The implications
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of this are mostly bad not only for the Foundation itself, but also for
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us, Free Software users and advocates.
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Twitter uses Free Software to run its services. So does Facebook, and I
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would even bet that Microsoft runs some GNU/Linux machines serving
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intranet pages... But the thing is not about what a web service uses. It
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is about endorsement. And I will explain.
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Free ads, anyone?
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-----------------
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I remember having this crazy thought some years ago, when I saw some
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small company in Brazil putting the Facebook logo in their product's
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box. What surprised me was that the Facebook logo was actually bigger
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than the company's logo! What the heck?!?! This is "Marketing 101": you
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are drawing attention to *Facebook*, not to your company who actually
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made the product. And from that moment on, every time I see Coca Cola
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putting a "Find us on <http://facebook.com/cocacola>" (don't know if the
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URL is valid, it's just an example) I have this strange feeling of how
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an internet company can twist the rules of marketing and get free ads
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everywhere...
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My point is simple: when a company uses a web service, it is endorsing
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the use of this same web service, even if in an indirect way. And the
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same applies to organizations, or foundations, for that matter. So the
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question I had in my mind when I saw FSF's Twitter account was: do we
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really want to endorse Twitter? So I sent them an e-mail...
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Talking to the FSF - First message
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----------------------------------
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I have exchanged some interesting messages with Kyra, FSF's Campaign
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Organizer, and with John Sullivan, FSF's Executive Director. I will not
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post the messages here because I don't have their permission to do so,
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but I will try to summarize what we discussed, and the outcomings.
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My first message was basically requiring some clarifications. I had read
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this [interesting page about the presence of FSF on
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Twitter](https://www.fsf.org/twitter), and expressed my disagreement
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about the arguments used there.
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They explicitly say that Twitter uses nonfree JavaScript, and suggest
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that the reader use a free client to access it. Yet, they still close
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their eyes to the fact that a [big part of the Twitter
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community](http://benjaminmayo.co.uk/how-many-people-use-twitter-s-own-apps)
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use it through the browser, or through some proprietary application.
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They also acknowledge that Twitter accounts have privacy issues. This is
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obvious for anyone interested in privacy, and the FSF even provides a
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link to an interesting story about subpoenas during the Occupy Wall
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Street movement.
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Nevertheless, the FSF still thinks it's OK to have a Twitter account,
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because it uses Twitter via a bridge which connects FSF's [StatusNet
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instance](http://status.fsf.org/fsf) to Twitter. Therefore, in their
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vision, they are not really using Twitter (at least, they are not using
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the proprietary JavaScript), and well, let the bridge do its job...
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This is nonsense. Again: when a foundation uses a web service, it is
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endorsing it, even if indirectly! And that was the main argument I have
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used when I wrote to them. Let's see how they replied...
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FSF answers
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-----------
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The answer I've got to my first message was not very good (very weak
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arguments), so I won't even bother talking about it here. I had to send
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another message to make it clear that I was interested in real answers.
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After the second reply, it became clear to me that the main point of the
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FSF is to reach as many people as they can, and pass along the message
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of software user freedom. I have the impression that it doesn't really
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matter the means they will use for that, as long as it is not Facebook
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(more on that latter). So if it takes using a web service that
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disrespects privacy and uses nonfree Javascript, so be it.
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It also seems to me that the FSF believes in an illusion created by
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themselves. In some messages, they said that they would try to do a
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harder job at letting people know that using Twitter is not the
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solution, but part of the problem (the irony is that they would do that
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**using** Twitter). However, sometimes I look at FSF's Twitter account,
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and so far **nothing has been posted** about this topic. Regular people
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just don't know that there are alternatives to Twitter.
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I will take the liberty to tell a little story now. I told the same
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story to them, to no avail. Let's imagine the following scenario: John
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has just heard about Free Software and is beginning to study about it.
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He does not have a Twitter account, but one of the first things he finds
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when he looks for Free Software on the web is FSF's Twitter. So, he
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thinks: "Hey, I would like to receive news about Free Software, and it's
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just a Twitter account away! Neat!". Then, he creates a Twitter account
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and starts following FSF there.
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Can you imagine this happening in the real world? I definitely can.
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The FSF is also mistaken when they think that they should go to Twitter
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in order to reach people. I wrote them, and I will say it again here,
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that I think we should create ways to reach those users "indirectly"
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(which, as it turns out, would be more direct!), trying to promote
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events, conferences, talks, face-to-face gatherings, etc. The
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LibrePlanet project, for example, is a *great* way of doing this job
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through local communities, and the FSF should pay a lot more attention
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to it in my opinion! These are "offline" alternatives, and I confess I
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think we should discuss the "online" ones with extra care, because we
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are in such a sad situation regarding the Internet now that I don't even
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know where to start...
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And last, but definitely not least, the FSF is being **incoherent**.
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When it says that "it is OK to use Twitter through a bridge in a
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StatusNet instance", then it should also be coherent and do the same
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thing for Facebook. One can use Facebook through bridges connecting
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privacy-friendly services such as
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[Diaspora](https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora) and
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[Friendica](https://github.com/friendica/friendica/wiki/How-to:-Friendica%E2%80%99s-Facebook-connector)
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(the fact that Diaspora itself has a Facebook account for the project is
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a topic I won't even start to discuss). And through those bridges, the
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FSF will be able to reach **much** more people than through Twitter.
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I am not, in any way, comparing Twitter and Facebook. I am very much
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aware that Facebook has its own set of problems, which are bigger and
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worse than Twitter's (in the most part). But last time I checked, we
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were not trying to find the best between both. They are both bad in
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their own ways, and the FSF should not be using either of them!
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Conclusion
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----------
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My conversation with the FSF ended after a few more messages. It was
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clear to me that they would not change anything (despite their promises
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to raise awareness to alternatives to Twitter, as I said above), and I
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don't believe in infinite discussions about some topic, so I decided to
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step back. Now, this post is the only thing I can do to try to let
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people know and think about this subject. It may seem a small problem to
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solve, and I know that the Free Software community must be together in
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order to promote the ideas we share and appreciate, but that is
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*precisely* why I am writing this.
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The Free Software movement was founded on top of ideas and coherence. In
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order to be successful, we must remain coherent to what we believe. This
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is not an option, there is no alternative. If we don't defend our own
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beliefs, no one will.
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