Talk:Social media

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(Redirected from Talk:Social media/Strategy for Wikipedia)

FYI, please see my proposal here. Thank you. Nosferattus (talk) 07:12, 20 November 2024 (UTC) Reply

Hi @Nosferattus, thanks for your suggestion and for sharing your concerns. We are constantly evaluating our presence on all social media channels – more lately on Twitter, as you can imagine, due to the most recent events. We are aware of the many brands and publishers leaving the platform entirely in the last few weeks. We are engaged in conversations with experts and other nonprofit organizations to determine our next steps regarding our accounts on Twitter. Many variables factor into this consideration, including our community still being present on the platform. We will ensure our ultimate decision is clear. Thank you! LPasqual (WMF) (talk) 19:46, 25 November 2024 (UTC) Reply

Hi @LPasqual (WMF). What is the status on this conversation? At this stage, a timeline for taking a decision seems necessary. It's not like the problem would be new! The WMF is feeding a platform which is openly hostile to journalism and the Wikimedia movement. A significant part of the community has already taken its responsibility and migrated to Mastodon, part of it, years ago! What is exactly stopping you to be active on Mastodon from January 2025? Kelson (talk) 19:19, 25 December 2024 (UTC) Reply

Hello @LPasqual (WMF), I, too, would like to hear an update on this topic.

A couple of sidenotes, however: Mastodon is one of the ActivityPub protocols; it has several hundred million active users - more than 75% of which are via Bluesky & Threads. Bluesky is a proprietary protocol, with some benefits, and all Bluesky users can receive Mastodon postings; contrariwise very few Mastodon and no Threads users receive BlueSky. Threads is a propretary implementation of ActivityPub, and Meta's project has chosen to deliberately obfuscate and limit access to the wider fediverse, but all Threads users *can* receive Mastodon postings. Therefore I would encourage the Foundation to use the most-accessible protocol - mastodon - which does not require running a Mastodon server (there are very simple implementations, even embedding within a webpage.) - Amgine/^{meta wikt wnews blog wmf-blog goog news} 19:47, 25 December 2024 (UTC) Reply

I've been tracking migrations away from X to alternative microblogging platforms for some time now. Wikimedia organizations and projects that have already suspended their presence on X include Wikimedia Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, and Austria, and the Kiwix project. Creative Commons suspended their account last month.

Given Wikimedia's commitment to equity and inclusion, it's worth noting that many organizations that promote equity and inclusion and fight against hate have long left X. That includes the Trevor Project (suicide prevention for LGBTQ+ young folks), GLSEN (anti-bullying organization), Belong To (Irish LGBT Youth organization), the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the German federal anti-disrimination office, and many local or regional LGBTQ+ organizations and clubs.

The reasons are always the same: since Musk has taken over the platform, he has weaponized it to promote his personal and political agenda. In practice, Musk is advancing authoritarian, far-right governments that are willing to align themselves with his commercial interests. This strategy is dependent on entirely separating people from any kind of fact-based thinking, and to advance fear and hatred through decontextualized scapegoating. That fear and hatred can then be politicized.

This approach has now succeeded in the US, and in combination with his vast personal wealth, Musk is advancing the same strategy in the UK, Germany, and other countries. His attacks on Wikimedia, a platform still grounded in facts, must be seen in light of this strategy. It's no coincidence that many of his attacks focus on former Wikimedia ED Katherine Maher, who now heads up NPR, another remaining US institution that still exists in a somewhat fact-based reality. (Incidentally, NPR is no longer on X.)

Arguments to remain on the platform because other Wikimedia-associated people and organizations still are there must be viewed as circular. Social media benefits from a network effect; Wikimedia Foundation remaining on the platform is keeping other people there. Instead, in my view, Wikimedia Foundation should treat Bluesky and Mastodon as its primary microblogging destinations, and make its decision and recommendations known within the Wikimedia movement.--Eloquence (talk) 21:13, 25 December 2024 (UTC) Reply

+1 on Amgine and Eloquence. I'll note that being active on BlueSky is redundant, because it's possible to bridge accounts from the existing wikimedia.social instance already run by Wikimedia Foundation (example), while the opposite is not possible because a BS account can't be fully self-hosted. However it would be ok to add a proprietary and centralised social media network like BS if at the same time another one were to be removed (for example Facebook?). Nemo 19:44, 26 December 2024 (UTC) Reply

Can we please also somewhere recognize that Bluesky, which is unable to be usefully self-hosted and thus effectively centralized, is vulnerable to exactly the same hostile takeover, enshittification and weaponization that has befallen all the major social media platforms that preceded it, including X. The only sustainable path forward currently is using the emerging fedi/activitypub based platforms, of which Mastodon is the major player, which are (like email) truly federated and decentralized. This then also opens up the wider possibility, which is of course to add ActivityPub to the Mediawiki platforms themselves, which could be a very powerful way to engage both editors and readers alike. — Jonathanischoice (talk) 22:05, 26 December 2024 (UTC) Reply

@LPasqual (WMF): Do you still have any doubt that you are supporting a platform that is actively hostile to our movement and its values? Musk is literally weaponizing the platform against us, and yet we still choose to cover our eyes and put more money in his pockets. Musk would love nothing better than to destroy Wikipedia and everything it represents. Unfortunately, he might actually have the opportunity to do that soon. Please leave now, while we can still do it with a shred of dignity. Nosferattus (talk) 03:56, 27 December 2024 (UTC) Reply

+ 1 on the comments related to stop supporting a platform with values totally opposite to the Wikimedia movement and what WMF should stand. P. S. sorry, I just saw this topic after my comment on a related topic I created a few months ago. --Tom (talk) 09:09, 27 December 2024 (UTC) Reply

Hi everyone – happy 2025!

We appreciate all of your concerns and suggestions. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.

We are monitoring this situation very closely. We have not published on Twitter/X since 24 December 2024.

As explained in our social media strategy, our social media work is aimed at meeting people where they are by being welcoming, accessible, and clear. We want to create meaningful pathways and connections to help them learn more about who we are and join us.

We are carefully weighing the tradeoffs of still being active on Twitter/X. For now, we have decided to focus our efforts on other social media channels.

Since mid-October, we have been running experiments on multiple social platforms. These experiments show us that audiences on Bluesky and Threads, as well as on short-form video platforms such as Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok, have an appetite to follow and keep up with Wikipedia. As the new year begins, we are expanding our daily content output into these platforms, and beginning the process to get them verified – including changing our username to reflect our own domain. The official Mastodon instance for the Wikimedia Foundation will continue to be managed by the Product & Technology department, to keep engaging with the thriving open-source community present in the platform.

Thank you! LPasqual (WMF) (talk) 18:46, 15 January 2025 (UTC) Reply

Framing Mastodon as a "thriving open-source community" is an error. There's, of course, lot os people who loves open-source there, but it's not an open-source community, but what a social media platform should be. Theklan (talk) 07:16, 22 January 2025 (UTC) Reply

Yeah, I don't see any of the many nonprofit orgs on the fediverse take that same view, that's a very WMF-idiosyncratic position. Fedi is "an open source community" in many of the same ways that Wikimedia itself is. Definitely lots of nerds & open source projects, but also many many other subcultures. Learning "what the hell is an instance" is the "what the hell is wiki markup" of the fediverse. It's a barrier, but one that many folks who aren't otherwise particularly "software people" have overcome.

I'm glad Wikimedia is no longer posting on X though. It'd be nice to see the courage of conviction to be more outspoken and definitive about it. Eloquence (talk) 21:25, 22 January 2025 (UTC) Reply

Can someone explain to me how the WMF's presence on Facebook, X (and related platforms) is consistent with the "Factual and verifiable information" section of the Movement Charter, particularly the sentence "The Wikimedia Movement actively avoids all biases, knowledge gaps, and misinformation and disinformation."? WMF's presence on these platforms lends them gravitas they have not earned and do not deserve. Additionally, I fail to understand how we can provide WMF staffers with a safe working environment while requiring them to interact with these platforms. Stuartyeates (talk) 21:23, 12 January 2025 (UTC) Reply

Following a discussion triggered by the recent DistroWatch debacle, I've updated phabricator:T341665#10499544 to suggest removal of the Facebook and Twitter share links from WMF blog posts. They're so unused that nobody noticed they don't even work. Nemo 06:20, 28 January 2025 (UTC) Reply

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