Remove X/Twitter link from homepage social media section

[castillo-n]

Removes the X/Twitter link from the homepage social media sidebar.
Mastodon and LinkedIn links stay as they are.

I noticed the icon-x-twitter class is still defined in the fontello
CSS files but no longer referenced anywhere after this change — might
be worth cleaning that up separately.

I also considered pulling the social links into a config array so they
could be toggled on/off by setting the URL to empty — that way if an
account gets abandoned in the future, it's just a value change instead
of editing HTML. Ended up keeping this PR minimal but figured I'd
mention it in case that's something worth doing down the line.

Closes #1877

[Crell]

We are not posting on X, nor should we, so removing the link is natural clean up.

[pronskiy]

There is a large PHP audience on Twitter that we are not reaching, and by not posting there, we only reinforce the “PHP is dead” narrative.

At the moment, we are not posting on Twitter because the PHP project does not have access to the account credentials, not because a decision was made not to post there.

Any such decision should be discussed and put to a vote.

[heiglandreas]

The postings on Twitter were very rare and most of the time just release-announcements.

This is a two folded thing IMO:

• Do we want to post on X?
• Do we actively want to endorse X on our homepage?

The issue that this PR closes was about the second point!

The "large PHP audience" will not be impacted by this. They are already stuck there. This PR - and therefore no longer actively endorsing X - will not impact users on X.

It will only impact users that see that the PHP Project is no longer (or not - depending on when they look) promoting X.

[Crell]

There is a large PHP audience on Twitter

This is not true. There is no PHP audience at all on Twitter, because Twitter no longer exists. As a social network, it ceased to exist years ago. What exists now is X, a new company that bought Twitter's corpse on the way out. X is an overly and explicitly far-right propaganda site. It's Truth Social with a larger database.

As for whatever PHP users are still on it and not on some other platform, I will not speak for them, but frankly nor will I speak to them. But that is beside the point.

PHP has no business linking to a far-right propaganda site from its home page. That said far-right propaganda site bought the user database and servers from a once-beloved unified social media company is irrelevant to that point. We should not be associated with such a company, just as I hope no one would defend linking to Truth Social or Stormfront.

We're hardly alone in this. Many if not most major language accounts have given up on X. Even the EFF just gave up on X. Fixating on the memory of Twitter is about as useful as saying we should host our website on GeoCities.

[pronskiy]

If someone believes PHP should not have a presence on X on principle, that is a legitimate values-based position. But that is different from saying there is no PHP audience there at all, or that having an official account would somehow make X central to PHP’s communication strategy.

The practical question is much narrower: does an official, low-maintenance, announce-only account help PHP reach users who are already there? If yes, then it is worth having one.

Having an account on X would not make it our primary platform, and it would not imply endorsement. php.net and any other community channels can remain primary. X would simply be one more outbound channel for releases, security announcements, and major project news.

I also don’t think we should make communication decisions based purely on whether individual contributors personally use or dislike a platform. The better question is where major parts of the PHP audience are, and how we can reach them with minimal cost and minimal dependency on any one service.

[ramsey]

I don't think a "legitimate values-based position" is the same as personally disliking something, and the issue here isn't about personal dislike of a platform.

[jimwins]

based purely on whether individual contributors personally use or dislike a platform

How about we base it on whether the platform is controlled by a white supremacist known for throwing out Nazi salutes at political rallies. PHP should have no presence on that platform. Staying there is not a politically neutral position.