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Nitter is shutting down
(github.com)
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
[Matrix/Element]Dead
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
Except in your own example, a viable alternative was immediately available. Users didn't switch because they didn't have other options or were physically limited from using anything else. They just preferred to use WhatsApp. Switching to an alternative was trivially easy. People just didn't want to because of personal preference. It would be trivially easy for me to stop drinking coffee every morning and only drink water - there's nobody pointing a gun at my head to make me drink coffee - but I like coffee and would be annoyed by giving it up and probably have a hard time quitting. The same is probably true for many people. Should access to coffee be considered a utility? Probably not.
You mentioned WhatsApp. Several times. WhatsApp is owned by Meta, an American company. If you want it to be a public utility and its owned by an American company, which country is going to be the one to make that happen? Also, calling "completely eradicating the first amendment in order to make it so that the American government can forcibly seize and censor people on its new state run social media websites" a "government problem" is an atomic bomb level of understatement.
It's not about personal preference. It's about momentum. If I stop drinking coffee, only I am being affected. If I stop using Whatsapp, I now have to convince everyone I'm in contact with to also use the alternative when msging me before I can actually stop using WhatsApp.
I am confident the EU could do it. A complete transfer of ownership isn't necessary for other countries to use exported services as public utilities. Public-private partnerships exist.
"American freedom of speech = Nazis get to speak" was your stance before. Now it's "Anything but American freedom of speech = government censorship". What am I even supposed to say here?