The Document Foundation is back with a new target: the European Commission. It is calling the body out for using Microsoft Excel while ignoring the OpenDocument Format (ODF).
There’s a difference between a public communications platform and internal tooling. X-Twitter is a shithole, but still a place many people can be reached, which, in my opinion, is important enough for politicians to justify its continued usage.
But there’s no public communications function to using MS Office over Libre Office. If anything, there’s a should-be-confidential communications function to it. Exposing that to foreign actors seems reckless even under the most amicable of relations, and what we have now is definitely not the most amicable.
So using X is an unfortunate concession to the Network Effect and its bearing on political public work, but using MS Office (whatever name it goes by these days, I lost track) is a liability.
(That said: get the fuck off of X, people, so our politicians can too. I’d prefer Mastodon, but even bsky is relatively more acceptable than X or Threads. Just go anywhere, please.)
I see your point, but still, that’s no excuse for X, it was never the network of the people, it’s used by politicians, reporters and news junkies. Most people never used it. Politicians and reporters are just addicted to it and too lazy to move anywhere else…
I know a bunch of people that did use it and made a point of quitting it. And that’s just my bubble of people willing to quit in the first place, never mind all the people that didn’t. Hell, there were entire meme communities centered on twitter content. One historian whose blog I read frequently referenced twitter, until he announced that he was moving away. He also lamented that the pricks bullshitting “historical facts” to justify whatever dickery had fewer historians to call them out, now that most had left the platform.
Of course, “most people” is a difficult assertion to measure, but I’m certain there were plenty enough readers on the platform, and I suspect way too many are still on there. Your take seems extremely reductive.
Twitter always had a fraction of Facebook or Instagram users. It was/is popular with certain niches, more or less popular in certain countries, but not the network to find your family or friends.
Politicians and reporters using it should be ashamed of sharing a platform with Nazis and pedophiles.
There’s a difference between a public communications platform and internal tooling. X-Twitter is a shithole, but still a place many people can be reached, which, in my opinion, is important enough for politicians to justify its continued usage.
But there’s no public communications function to using MS Office over Libre Office. If anything, there’s a should-be-confidential communications function to it. Exposing that to foreign actors seems reckless even under the most amicable of relations, and what we have now is definitely not the most amicable.
So using X is an unfortunate concession to the Network Effect and its bearing on political public work, but using MS Office (whatever name it goes by these days, I lost track) is a liability.
(That said: get the fuck off of X, people, so our politicians can too. I’d prefer Mastodon, but even bsky is relatively more acceptable than X or Threads. Just go anywhere, please.)
I see your point, but still, that’s no excuse for X, it was never the network of the people, it’s used by politicians, reporters and news junkies. Most people never used it. Politicians and reporters are just addicted to it and too lazy to move anywhere else…
I doubt that’s accurate.
I know a bunch of people that did use it and made a point of quitting it. And that’s just my bubble of people willing to quit in the first place, never mind all the people that didn’t. Hell, there were entire meme communities centered on twitter content. One historian whose blog I read frequently referenced twitter, until he announced that he was moving away. He also lamented that the pricks bullshitting “historical facts” to justify whatever dickery had fewer historians to call them out, now that most had left the platform.
Of course, “most people” is a difficult assertion to measure, but I’m certain there were plenty enough readers on the platform, and I suspect way too many are still on there. Your take seems extremely reductive.
Twitter always had a fraction of Facebook or Instagram users. It was/is popular with certain niches, more or less popular in certain countries, but not the network to find your family or friends.
Politicians and reporters using it should be ashamed of sharing a platform with Nazis and pedophiles.