{"id":5171,"date":"2025-01-30T10:00:25","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T10:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/?p=5171"},"modified":"2025-01-28T12:22:13","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T12:22:13","slug":"why-we-should-all-leave-twitter-or-x-for-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/opine\/2025\/01\/30\/why-we-should-all-leave-twitter-or-x-for-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Why we should all leave Twitter (or \u2018X\u2019) for good"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twitter is going to the dogs, and we\u00a0should<\/em> be sad about it \u2013 but sometimes you have to know when to let go.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s right, I said Twitter<\/em>. I\u2019m sorry, but I can\u2019t take the name \u2018X\u2019 seriously. It has, and always will give me the seediest vibes. I want to tweet and shitpost, not google something which feels not-safe-for-work.<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember signing up for Twitter on 26<\/span>th<\/span> August 2010 \u2013 specific, I know, but forgive me, it was my first day of secondary school. At that time, Twitter was the place to be; slightly more mysterious than Facebook, and a gateway to a wider world beyond my beloved MSN. A screenshot of the Twitter homepage in 2010 declared it to be a \u2018rich source of instant information\u2019 and as we witnessed the maturation of the true information age, it couldn\u2019t have been more exciting.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, I was 11 (let\u2019s ignore the minimum account holder age\u2026it was a different time), I wasn\u2019t looking to find out what David Cameron was up to, or for updates on Barack Obama\u2019s re-election campaign. I wanted to tweet about my favourite actor from Coronation Street that I\u2019d spent that whole summer obsessing over (which most of my friends and family thought was weird). Joining Twitter was the first time I found my tribe, and it continued. I\u2019ve had several rebrands over the years, from dedicating my account to One Direction, to realising I probably needed to stop tweeting about Dan and Phil and Emmerdale on my main account if I wanted to be taken seriously. But the fact remains \u2013 Twitter has always been a place to be myself.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since 2020, I\u2019ve used my main account, @howverykk, to tweet about politics and current affairs. Now in my twenties, I am actually interested in what politicians and the powerful are up to and for years Twitter was the place to get that news. During the pandemic, I scrolled Twitter while Nicola Sturgeon delivered briefings, getting the latest updates even when I couldn\u2019t watch the real thing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At The Gaudie<\/em> we value Twitter too. During the University\u2019s botched plans to cull modern language teaching, and the subsequent Save UoA Languages campaign, Gaudie reporters were breaking news and finding news, all on the bird app. In 2023, when we revealed Principal George Boyne wanted striking staff to \u2018feel pain along the way\u2019, more than 364,000 people saw the post, with the article being picked up by several national news outlets, including STV<\/em> and The Scotsman<\/em>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the platform has steadily declined since Elon Musk acquired it in October 2022, becoming almost unrecognisable from the safe, vibrant space it once was. When the billionaire first took the helm, the site had reached a peak of 368.4 million active monthly users worldwide according to Statista. It\u2019s hard to find reliable stats since the takeover, but regardless, the quality of the content has certainly decreased. After Musk\u2019s recent Nazi salute, I believe it\u2019s time we all left for good, no matter how hard it may be.<\/span><\/p>\n

But why should you leave Twitter?<\/span><\/p>\n

Firstly, Elon Musk. There are many reasons why he is a problematic man. In 2023, the Twitter owner responded to a tweet accusing Jewish people of hatred against \u2018whites\u2019, declaring the original poster\u2019s opinion to be \u201cthe actual truth\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

More recently, Musk has aligned himself with far-right ideologies, including spending over a quarter of a billion US dollars supporting Donald Trump\u2019s MAGA movement. Do we really want the owner of one of the world\u2019s most powerful social media sites to have such far-right, damaging views?<\/span><\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s billionaire status, estimated at $436bn USD, is far more than any person needs, and it highlights the power imbalance at play \u2013 I do not believe it is possible to accumulate that much wealth without exploiting the most vulnerable in society, and, I do not know about you, but I want to support as little of these kinds of people as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

Secondly, the changes Musk implemented on Twitter have drastically decreased the quality of the content while simultaneously increasing the harm it creates. According to the Network Contagion Research Institute, just twelve hours after Musk\u2019s takeover, the use of a prominent racial slur had increased by almost 500%. Six months after the takeover, Twitter\u2019s verification system became subscription only. As celebs like Bette Midler called Musk a \u2018worm\u2019 for removing her blue tick, your average joe could finally fulfil their dreams of being verified or having \u2018X Premium\u2019, as it was rebranded to. All this did was remove the safety blanket of trust from genuinely influential accounts, instead giving an air of importance to anyone willing to pay the fee. This is not to mention the myriad of policy changes implanted, like removing the policies banning deadnaming transgender individuals or spreading covid misinformation.<\/span><\/p>\n

To add a more recent example to the list, a video of a Sydney Bishop being brutally murdered circulated on the platform. While other social media sites removed the clip promptly, Musk\u2019s Twitter refused, even after the Australian internet safety regulator requested its removal. We know it is important that harmful content is removed quickly \u2013 and that was never more apparent than when it emerged the Southport killer Axel Rudakubana watched the clip in the hours before savagely murdering three young girls and attempting to murder another 8 children and 2 adults.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not even to mention the degradation in content \u2013 and for me, that is all linked to one key policy change: ‘freedom of speech, not freedom of reach\u2019. Where previously an account would be suspended or banned for spreading harmful content, Twitter says it instead limits the reach of problematic content. I do not believe this to be true, and as soon as Musk allowed previously banned accounts to return \u2013 like the misogynist Andrew Tate and convicted felon Donald Trump \u2013 harmful rhetoric was spread all over the site. It is now a regular occurrence to see vile tweets about women, marginalised and vulnerable people. Twitter, once a site for everyone, has turned into a cesspit.<\/span><\/p>\n

At first, it was easy to block and mute accounts like Andrew Tate, or to simply report problematic posts, but the problem runs deeper now. The owner of the site proudly giving the Nazi salute, not once but twice is the final straw. <\/span>
\n<\/span>Don\u2019t get me wrong, I agree that it is hard to say goodbye. For 15 years of my life, Twitter has been my safe space. A place to laugh, cry, to find and share news, and to fangirl over my favourite celebrities throughout the years in equal measure. While alternatives exist, Meta\u2019s Threads<\/em> has largely been a disaster. The most promising contender, Bluesky<\/em>, has a way to go. It currently lacks features like direct messaging, but, most importantly, still lacks a user base big enough to be a competitor for Twitter. Morally, it is time we did the right thing and made the transition. I feel a bit of a hypocrite writing this, still using a Twitter account, but I am writing this for me as much as I am for you \u2013 let\u2019s all do better.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s leave Elon behind.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twitter is going to the dogs, and we\u00a0should be sad about it \u2013 but sometimes you have to know when to let go. That\u2019s right, I said Twitter. I\u2019m sorry, but I can\u2019t take the name \u2018X\u2019 seriously. It has, and always will give me the seediest vibes. I want to tweet and shitpost, not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":5172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","iawp_total_views":106,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[1022,391,234,1019,392,311,490,1020,1021],"wf_post_folders":[337],"class_list":{"0":"post-5171","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-opine","8":"tag-bluesky","9":"tag-censorship","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-elon-musk","12":"tag-freedom-of-speech","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-social-media","15":"tag-twitter","16":"tag-x"},"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Kirsten Koss","author_link":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/author\/kirsten-koss\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Photo-credit_-free-malaysia-today-300x188.webp","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Opine<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Opine<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Bluesky<\/a>","censorship<\/a>","Donald Trump<\/a>","Elon Musk<\/a>","freedom of speech<\/a>","Politics<\/a>","social media<\/a>","Twitter<\/a>","X<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Bluesky<\/span>","censorship<\/span>","Donald Trump<\/span>","Elon Musk<\/span>","freedom of speech<\/span>","Politics<\/span>","social media<\/span>","Twitter<\/span>","X<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 2 years ago","modified":"Updated 2 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on 30 January 2025","modified":"Updated on 28 January 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on 30 January 2025 10:00","modified":"Updated on 28 January 2025 12:22"},"featured_img_caption":"Photo credit: free malaysia today","series_order":"","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5171"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5173,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5171\/revisions\/5173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5171"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=5171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}