
Rustlang: “This account will pause tweeting until further notice” - saaaam
https://twitter.com/rustlang/status/1267519580756422659
======
whymauri
I like this a lot. Even the passive acknowledgment that technology and
engineering do not exist in a bubble exclusive from the real world is
meaningful. I do think the call to action to invest in our communities
matters.

I know I'm N=1, but I have increased respect for the Rust organization.

------
dx87
Not seeing anything similar on /r/rust, or the official forum. This twitter
account barely tweets at all, it's like they want to send a message, but don't
want to actually inconvenience anybody.

~~~
abstractbeliefs
I agree - it's the definition of pandering: it serves no higher purpose than
to gratify some group of people, without serving any deeper meaning.

I would like to know in what way this will actually influence change. Don't
get me wrong, sincere displays of solidarity matter, but this isn't one. It's
an effortless token gesture.

~~~
afiori
> Don't get me wrong, sincere displays of solidarity matter, but this isn't
> one. It's an effortless token gesture.

This is entirely based on assumptions about who wrote that tweet and how that
account is manages.

------
afiori
A judgement-free aside:

The information age intrinsically makes it harder for this kind of statements.

On almost all topics we are bounded to be ignorant of some important facets,
and the sheer size of the internet means that many other will be
ignorant/knowledgeable on different facet of any topic.

In a sense this means that most endorsements of public topics by an
organization/individual will incur in a certain level of "what about these
negative sides of that thing"; this happens especially if there was not a
previous synchronizing pressure for that topic.

Once upon a time it was a lot easier for social clusters to be similarly
ignorant/knowledgeable on any given topic.

As often happens with progress we lose something and we gain something.

------
bzb3
>Rust believes that tech is and always will be political

Yeah, no thanks. And much less when you're taking a side. I mean, I know
you're a Mozilla project after all, but eeek.

------
thrownaway954
this make absolutely no sense. as one reply pointed out, are they going to
shutdown their feed every time something happens? maybe i'm just too involved
in AA, so i like the whole concept of "we have no opinions on outside issues".
rust is doing the opposite of this. to me, if the individual core team members
want to take stance and not tweet, that's fine, but the organization as a
whole shouldn't.

------
frosted-flakes
> In acknowledgement that taking a stand against police brutality is more
> important than sharing tech knowledge, this account will pause tweeting
> until further notice. Feel free to email the core team at: core@rust-
> lang.org.

\-- @rustlang

~~~
SV_BubbleTime
So they've stopped using twitter for a week or two, but are still running an
email list. That's nice to signal they're in solidarity I guess? I mean, what
is the downside for them here? A for short time some casual Rust enthusiasts
won't see news?

------
ASalazarMX
Python Software Foundation's Twitter account did the same. I don't know how
many more made a stance, but I needed to learn Wagtail CMS and they too went
dark on their website. Maybe not all tech is political, but open source,
freedom being one of its foundations, sure is.

0\.
[https://twitter.com/ThePSF/status/1267591714925133825](https://twitter.com/ThePSF/status/1267591714925133825)

1\. [https://wagtail.io/](https://wagtail.io/)

~~~
eesmith
Freedom includes the freedom to not do something.

That's why when I modify a free software package for my own personal use and
gratification, I'm not forced to distribute the changes to anyone, not even
upstream.

Archive.org's copies, like the one at
[https://web.archive.org/web/20190212143902/https://wagtail.i...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190212143902/https://wagtail.io/)
, seems usable. Plus, things like
[http://docs.wagtail.io/en/v2.4/](http://docs.wagtail.io/en/v2.4/) are still
live.

~~~
ASalazarMX
Also any inner links are fine, like
[https://wagtail.io/features/](https://wagtail.io/features/). They didn't go
completely dark, just their home page.

------
aaron695
Top tweet reply Twitter fed me was on point -

Replying to @rustlang

"The world is bigger than just the USA."

There are a lot of problems in the world, Syria pops into mind or a billion
people who can't fully feed their kids.

But they are not a viral Twitter sensation. Gotta be 'cool'

~~~
doomrobo
If you apply this criterion consistently, nobody would be allowed to protest
anything

~~~
afiori
If I may this does not apply here. The tweet was formulated as "Since issue X
is more important than our tweets etc." so the criticism of "Also issue Y was
more important" is not baseless.

This would not apply if they just supported the cause, or even decided to join
the protest. For how international it can be the rust organization is
intrinsically based in the US so it is understandable why they might want to
make a statement about the current events.

Nevertheless the criticism has a basis in how the tweet was formulated, as the
way it was written transforms a perfectly reasonable position of "we cannot
and shouldn't fight every battle" into "that other issue was less important".

I would say this was a case where a bad argument was worse than no argument.

Just to repeat myself one more time if the tweet was only "In support of
current protests we chose to stop tweeting until further notice" then your
comment would be completely right.

------
Shorel
>Rust believes that tech is and always will be political

As long as it is about American politics. Shame.

------
downerending
I'm not even following the rationale. They're angry at Twitter? For what,
exactly?

~~~
afiori
I would assume that it is in the same rationale as "taking a minute of
silence". It is a statement and a public ritual to both express and show
seriousness of an event.

Obviously they are not the same thing, but it is not trivial to find a precise
rationale under things that have no need to be 100% rational, such as showing
public support.

------
noxer
Stupid, whoever controls that account, please hand it over to someone else and
use your personal account to post nothing.

------
qbaqbaqba
Americentrism.

------
threatofrain
> Rust believes that tech is and always will be political- take some time
> today to invest in your community.

------
lake99
Non-violent protesters were getting killed by Hong Kong's police in broad
daylight for the last few months. Were the Rust people not aware of them?

~~~
Udik
There are no reports of people killed by the police in the HK protests.

Source:

U.S. Department of State

[https://www.state.gov/reports/2019-country-reports-on-
human-...](https://www.state.gov/reports/2019-country-reports-on-human-rights-
practices/china/hong-kong/)

"There were no credible reports that the government or its agents committed
arbitrary or unlawful killings."

Edit: hate to say that, but why instead of clicking the damn downvote button
don't you go and actually check if there are recorded deaths?

~~~
lake99
You're using an outdated document as your source.

I will not post direct links. Instead, I invite you to browse tags like
#HongKongPoliceTerrorism, #HongKongPoliceBrutality, #HKpolice, etc. on
Twitter.

We all know not to trust COVID death counts from China. HK police brutality is
something like that. We have video evidence of a few murders. As for the
actual count, no one knows.

~~~
rvz
And many major tech companies (Apple, Google, YouTube, Bytedance) were
censoring the HK protestors with China, Even when a protestor was shot with a
live round on Facebook Live.

Sounds like double standards with the current action with tech companies.

~~~
harry8
No not double standards. They are absolutely consistent standards. Zero
principles. Pure profit motive. You don't have to run your company like that.
This was a choice they have made. (Note that the profit motive isn't always
the profit of the shareholders, it is the profit motive of the powerful inside
the company).

Don't miss the point though. Cannot, under any circumstances be trusted. If
they are sufficiently pressured they might do the right thing, or at least
pretend to in public. Assume they are lying about everything until proven
otherwise is a statement of the obvious.

------
saaaaaam
Not related to the topic but seeing this posted under my username this caused
me a LOT of confusion until I counted the number of times the letter “A”
occurred.

------
DC-3
I know this will get accused of being whataboutism, but isn't it a bizarre
sort of leftist chauvinism to make gestures like this about issues in ones own
country in spite of similar things happening across the world on a weekly
basis - especially for a project that touts itself as very international in
scope?

~~~
pnako
[https://chicago.suntimes.com/2020/6/1/21275944/chicago-
weeke...](https://chicago.suntimes.com/2020/6/1/21275944/chicago-weekend-
shootings-most-violent-weekend-2020-may-29-june-1)

20 dead people in a week-end. Apparently, Blacks lives don't matter that much
in Chicago. I guess it's only in the particular case that a white cop
brutalizes a black suspect, in America, that the entire fucking world, from
Germany to Tokyo, needs to be indignant, for some reason. It's totally organic
and not a political manipulation at all /s

------
jodrellblank
On what platform will the further notice be given?

~~~
kgin
Assuming you're still looking at Twitter for reasons other than @rustlang, the
notice will be on Twitter when the tweets start again.

~~~
jodrellblank
This is a "who shaved the barber?" puzzle; that situation should be forbidden
by the content of the tweet - they're not allowed to tweet again until _after_
they've given notice.

~~~
afiori
your noticing the notice and them resuming tweets are asynchronous. If we want
to bring some logic inferences the only thing we can say is that their next
tweet must say something about restarting to tweet.

Actually no, the only thing we could hold them up to is that before any tweet
on the usual topics there should be a notice that normal tweets have begun
again. It would be perfectly reasonable to now defend their position without a
prior notice that they are going to also defend their position.

~~~
jodrellblank
I’m assuming the notice exists independently of whether I see it or not. If
the notice is a tweet then submitting the tweet happens before anyone could
read it and the account has resumed tweeting before giving notice.

If the position is “we won’t tweet again until we do” then this is a
meaningless announcement because that’s the default position of every twitter
account.

~~~
afiori
The reason you are deriving a meaningless statement is because “we won’t tweet
again until we do” is a terrible synopsis of that tweet. How about "we suspend
how usual operation until further notice"?

If tomorrow morning they were to comment a justification of their choice that
would still be outiside of the normal rust-related news the account concern
itself and thus allowed.

Treating languages as naive logic statements is doing a disservice to both
language and logic.

~~~
jodrellblank
If it's doing a disservice to language and logic, why are you engaging with it
talking about what would be "thus allowed"? Because it's fun, is why. I'm not
confused by it, I'm taking their word as literal and asked a non-serious
question that would go well with a thinking_face emoji.

~~~
afiori
Well the reason on my part is quite simple: I am quite pedantic on semantics
:)

Another reason is that I would say I do not particularly like the part "let's
take words literally stripping the intended meaning", my intention was at
least to show an opposition to such interpretation.

If you were having just fun then don't take this as a criticism, but I will
continue to oppose such interpretations :)

------
RichardHeart
Progress need not be stopped or crippled because something sucks somewhere. In
fact, progress should be focused on, in spite of the suck.

~~~
deepstar
A break in posting to twitter isn't going to stop progress.

