The cute little cat sticks out its claws. The great migration is taking shape. The HelloQuitteX collective (do you have it?*), made up of researchers but also associations or journalists, wants to cut ties with X. Their deadline is January 20, the date of the return to power of Donald Trump, newly re-elected and supported by Elon Musk, boss of the micro blogging social network.
From Monday, HelloQuitteX intends to offer all Internet users a specific tool to help wean themselves off X. Thanks to a site and a few manipulations, anyone will be able to find their subscribers and subscriptions on Bluesky and Mastodon, two competing platforms. “The objective is that no one loses their followers,” assures David Chavalarias, researcher at the CNRS and one of the project leaders. The research center, a stakeholder in the project, also guarantees the protection of all data used in the process. “We would also like to integrate important lists and posts,” explains David Chavalarias. The idea is to facilitate the transfer of a valuable social network, with people you have known for years, from a closed place to an open place. »
“Elon Musk has the algorithm, there’s no point in staying”
What sets HelloQuitteX apart from browser extensions that already exist? “The more different solutions there are, the better,” assures the researcher. But most of the plugins that exist are either approximate or partial. We invite each user to contribute their little stone to accurately reproduce the connections that have been provided. »
HelloQuitteX also intends to motivate this migration by informing about the abuses observed on from the boss of SpaceX and Tesla. But is it a good idea to abandon the field? “We think that Musk won over X,” admits Grégory Fabre, founder of the Granite cloud service and another HelloQuitteX stakeholder. He owns the algorithm and all ideas have to go through him. So there’s no point in staying. »
This does not necessarily mean resigning oneself to defeatism. “There are plenty of other networks,” answers David Chavalarias. No media is on far-right networks like Gab or Parler, no one feels obligated to be there. They flooded the area with shit (to use an expression from Steve Bannon, American far-right activist): the question is: “Do you take a buoy to swim in it, or are you going to in the pool next door?” »
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In France, several media have already taken the plunge: West France was the first French newspaper to announce that it was leaving X on November 19. The Mediapart editorial team announced on Tuesday that it will do the same on January 20.
*For those who don’t have the “Hello Kitty” collective pun.
