It is time to conjure up mental images of vast herds barrelling across the dusty savannah and to proclaim, in your best whispery David Attenborough impression, that we are witnessing one of nature’s truly great and most majestic spectacles: a mass migration.
I cannot claim to understand the rainfall signals that prompt a million Serengeti wildebeest to abandon one grazing pasture and head to the next in a 2,000km circuit that is one of the wonders of the natural world. But when it comes to the fresh wave of X users hopping over to rival networks such as Bluesky, the trigger to move on is quite straightforward.
The drip, drip of casual racism, edgelord bigotry, bad-faith polemics, dog whistles, crass disinformation, dodgy pornbots, cynical grifting, tin-hat conspiracies and tiresome crypto b*****ks became too much for some users of the site formerly known as Twitter fairly soon after Elon Musk bought it in October 2022, later changing its name to X.
Since then, the tolerance for intolerance has intensified. In November last year, for example, X reinstated the account of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the far-right agitator known as Tommy Robinson. But for some users, the final push has come this summer, when X provided a warm environment for sympathisers of the far-right thugs who ran riot across Britain’s streets. Musk himself declared that “civil war is inevitable” in the UK in response to the violence.
Now, Musk – a resolute fan of free speech as long as he agrees with it – has topped that off with invectives against what he calls the UK’s “Woke Stasi” punishing those who use social media to stir up violence. The pong of fascist sludge has become overpowering.
Back in the day, the site was something special. It had its fair share of trolls, but it also brought genuine humour and insight. Millions of users have clung on, some out of hope, some for a range of more valid reasons. At a certain point, though, the sludge becomes impossible to ignore.
[ Who’s afraid of X owner Elon Musk?Opens in new window ]
To nick a phrase from the great Victor Lewis-Smith, it is like having a pissing area in a swimming pool. Many British bathers, aghast at the sight of Musk using his platform to nurture a safe space for hate speech, have decided it is time to get out, rinse off, and find a new home.
Bluesky – my platform of choice for the past year – is still tiny, with six million or so users, set against X’s 250 million global daily users. But a spokesperson for my newish home says Bluesky has seen almost 25,000 new UK users join in the past 12 days, with an inflow that has often made the country the hotspot globally for new sign-ups. MPs are joining at a fair clip. It certainly feels, as a user, like a livelier and more Brit-heavy space.
I still believe that back in the day, while it was called Twitter, the site was something special. It had its fair share of trolls. Being female on the internet offers an enlightening insight into society’s more Neanderthal viewpoints. My “block” and “mute” functions were well worn. But Twitter also brought genuine humour and insight. It built real-life communities focused around sometimes arcane areas of interest, often centred on true experts in their field. I made friends. I got stories. Twitter meet-ups were fun, and boozy. I know a couple who met on the site and ended up getting married.
For me, the golden years were in the euro-crisis period a decade or so ago. Twitter moved markets, it was essential reading, it shaped the narrative, it dissected every nuance of nerdy debt restructurings in real time, and somehow made it all a laugh. I was hooked, and was also quietly proud of my own little turf of influence. “I love you on Twitter,” people frequently told me – a tummy tickle to the ego that’s hard to resist.
By the time I gave up, I had a decent cohort of followers for someone whose area of specialism was crap jokes about finance. The “vomiting camel” of technical market analysis remains my single most significant contribution to the sum of human knowledge in more than two decades in journalism.
But X itself has become a crap joke. The trolling got louder, the sludge got sludgier. The dog whistles turned into foghorns as X’s content moderation function withered away. My cue to leave was the sight of X hosting an interview between noisy rightwing mouthpiece Tucker Carlson and self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate.
I’m a feminist before I’m most other things and that’s a red line for me in the “marketplace of ideas”. Taxi for Martin, I’m out. Ask yourself: if X was invented in its current form today, would you sign up?
Yes, you will miss the dopamine hits of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of retweets, but trust me, you will get over it
To be clear, if you are still clinging on, I don’t think that necessarily makes you an active participant in a fascist project. Thousands of analysts, freelance journalists and others need the audience and rely on it for a living. Major publications, including the FT, benefit from its undoubted reach. Life isn’t perfect and, wittingly or otherwise, our daily consumption choices often have negative externalities. I’m not here to lecture or to be holier than thou.
Nonetheless, if you are coming to the conclusion that it is time to get out, given Musk’s latest antics – and getting out for real, rather than in a temporary strop – here is my guide to breaking up with your X.
Cold Turkey
The main thing is to go (almost) cold turkey. Just stop posting. Yes, you will miss the dopamine hits of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of retweets to your quips and pronouncements, but trust me, you will get over it. I swapped nearly 100,000 X followers for zero (now about 2,000) on Bluesky and decided to be a grown-up about it. Crucially, you will no longer be contributing to a platform thirsty for content and for ads and comfortable with a “both sides” approach to barefaced racism.
News junkies
The other thing for news junkies like me is: keep your X account. Okay, maybe this is cheating, but I don’t mean this as an effort to keep your options open. Instead it is a way to accept reality. Nothing, and certainly not Bluesky, can yet compete with the scale and speed of news that X provides. When I was tracking UK election results or Team GB Olympic medal tallies, I still used X’s search function, infested though it is with pornbot nonsense. It is useful for tracking the occasional event. I just never post.
Be patient
Third, accept the limitations of your new home, whatever you use. I opted for Bluesky because I found Mastodon clunky and because I can’t be arsed fishing around more broadly on Threads. You may have different tastes. In any case, don’t expect to hop from one fully formed community to another. Be patient.
To me at least, Bluesky has echoes of Twitter in around 2013. Some of the same people, and a smattering of the insight, banter and jokes that made it so addictive back then. But smaller. Much smaller. It still often feels like posting into a void, a slightly smug and self-righteous one at that. I’m opting to keep the faith that it will grow.
Don’t feed the trolls
Last, if you do jump ship, don’t repeat mistakes from The Other Place, as X is often referred to elsewhere. Don’t feed the trolls, don’t bother trying to change their minds. Life’s too short to put up with abuse or to turn a blind eye to harmful bullshit. Block early, block often, but contribute. Help to build something.
It sounds melodramatic, but leaving X does leave a gap in your life. I realised how much that hellsite supported my self-esteem only once I binned it. It’s okay to feel sad at what it has become. Rival wannabe platforms may find themselves in the same cesspit once they scale up, and if they do, I’ll bin them too. The wildebeest apparently end up where they started, but I’ve never looked back. Believe me, there is life after X. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024
