The argument against Twitter is becoming overwhelming. The social media network, to which I still refuse to refer using Elon Musk’s embarrassing rebrand “X”, has always had its dark side. It has been described, by its most loyal users, as “the hellsite” for literally years. It’s been a transmission mechanism for nasty far-right politics to reach the political mainstream before, too, playing no small part in the unlikely transformation of a failed real-estate mogul and reality-TV star into the once and perhaps future president of the United States.
But since Elon Musk acquired it, possibly by accident, back in 2022, the voices of racist, misogynistic or homophobic trolls have become louder and more prominent. Moderation policies have been weakened; banned accounts belonging to the likes of Andrew Tate or Alex Jones reinstated. Misinformation abounds, and the loss of reputable advertisers has made noticeably less reputable ones more visible.
Even that era now looks like a lost golden age compared to these last few weeks. Musk has tweeted about “two-tier Keir” – a reference to a right-wing conspiracy theory that the reason violent anti-immigration rioters have been policed more harshly than protesters supporting left-wing causes is the politics, not the violence. He’s agreed with Nigel Farage that the Prime Minister is the “biggest threat to free speech we’ve seen in our history”. He’s even used his platform to predict civil war in the UK. If Twitter was a new social media network, the News Agents’ Lewis Goodall has argued, we’d treat it like Truth Social or Gab – an outpost of the alt right – not the world’s “public square”. If your politics aren’t on the nasty right, the case for leaving is increasingly unarguable.
So unarguable, in fact, that you might find it hard to understand why this is a sad moment for some. It isn’t just that many of us have built up followings of which it is hard to let go, though that is of course a factor. It’s that, for those who report or write, think or speak, for a living, Twitter has been genuinely valuable: a place where we could follow the news in real time, encounter and learn from legitimate experts, and just occasionally snigger like, say, the time that I discovered a minor public figure had a thing for brunettes in Arsenal strips and didn’t realise his likes were public. We are losing something that once was good.
To those who never made their home on the network, this may sound a little sad; and I’m aware, too, that I’m white, cis, male, and in possession of almost every other characteristic that makes life on the internet more bearable. (The worst abuse I tend to encounter is the suggestion I could stand to lose some weight… which, yes.) Nonetheless: it’s no exaggeration to say that Twitter changed my life. After nearly a decade working for trade mags that were worthy and even interesting, but whose names tended to make people’s eyes glaze over, it allowed me to get to know editors at more mainstream titles. That led me to a job at the New Statesman, and that led to everything I do now. From podcasts to books to the fact there are those who’ll pay directly for my writing on Substack: for all of those things, I have Twitter to thank.
But it wasn’t just my worklife that Twitter changed. Many in my social circle today are those I originally met there. I’ve made close friends and found romantic partners on the platform. The single most important relationship of my life was with someone I first encountered on Twitter; and while we did meet at a party, it was a party neither of us would have been at without Twitter. Hellsite it may be; but there will still be children in the world right now who would not exist without it.
There were the fun days, when everyone stopped to watch planes trying to land at Heathrow in a storm, or pedestrians attempting to negotiate a large puddle in Newcastle. There were the crisis ones, when a government was falling, or a soon-to-be-sacked minister’s plane about to land, and Twitter was where you went to watch it live. But there were also the days when it helped just to know people were there. When that person most important to me died suddenly last year, the thoughts and support and actual love from those who had known us only through Twitter were at times genuinely valuable in keeping the show on the road.
All of which means I’d always assumed I’d be there until the bitter end, when it finally underwent a catastrophic technical failure or simply went bust. After these last weeks, I’m not so sure – but nowhere else has emerged to fill the void. Threads has no reverse chronological timeline and an algorithm that seems to prioritise strangely judgemental personal stories over anything related to the news. Mastodon is too small, and too designed for the sort of people who love Linux. BlueSky has seen a vast exodus from UK Twitter, but currently lacks either the user numbers or the breadth that made Twitter what it was. I like it, and suspect it’ll be my new home on the internet. But still, something has been lost.
Nothing lasts forever, and rumours of Twitter’s death have abounded for about as long as it’s lived. Perhaps it’s finally over; perhaps, given all that’s happened, that’s a good thing. But my god, will I mourn.
[See also: Keir Starmer’s Elon Musk problem]
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