The Debate: Should we finally say goodbye to Twitter/X?
CityAM’s weekly feature takes the fiercest water-cooler debates and pits two candidates head to head before delivering The Judge’s ultimate verdict. Today, a special guest appearance from former debate editor and now associate political editor at the New Statesman, Rachel Cunliffe.
Should we leave Twitter/X?
Yes: The party is over, and what was it good for anyway?
It’s time for everyone to leave Twitter. Or X, or whatever it is now. Who cares. What’s important is, it’s time. Everyone. Pack your stuff, say your goodbyes, and get out. Starting with the bores who said they’d leave in the aftermath of Brexit. Then those who said they’d had enough when Donald Trump was banned. Followed by everyone who said they’d go if Elon Musk took over.
And then the people who said they’d leave after he took over. Next in line: the people who tell us all they’re leaving every six months. You’re all still here. Con te partiro.
This platform does nothing for you. You whine on it, complain about it, and forget that in the real world, none of this matters. It isn’t the town square, or the ancient forum made new. It is a teeming multitude of algorithms designed to sell products. It has made you weak and lazy. It has corroded the information sphere, reducing it to another source of “content.” No policy is driven from it. No great change led by it. The high point of its achievements was getting a dangerous dog breed banned. A banned breed that’s still everywhere.
People need to know when to leave a party — this shindig died a death some time ago. Sure, there’s the occasional flurry of activity — a highly meme-able event for us all to pile in on. But that’s all this place is, now: where tired, memetic behaviour chases itself round in perpetuity for advertising revenue.
It’s time for everyone to leave. Except me, obviously. I’m staying.
Benedict Spence is a freelance writer. He xeets (for now) at @BenedictSpence
No: Let’s not let the trolls win
Let’s be clear, Elon Musk has done everything possible to ruin Twitter – and no, I won’t be indulging him by calling it X. Letting the most hateful trolls back onto the site, turning blue-tick verification into a way for grifters to make money out of outrage and spam, plus Musk himself using the platform he bought as his personal playground to stoke tensions and feud with the actual prime minister of the UK… there is no denying that the site is even more toxic now than it ever has been.
And yet, I cannot bring myself to leave. It’s not just because of my unhealthy addiction to doomscrolling.
I remember Twitter as it once was: a place of serendipity, of connection, of firing out a question into the online abyss and being greeted with a wave of answers ranging from helpful to amusing to downright bizarre.
I have made friends for life on this godforsaken app. I got to know my now-husband in a robust debate about immigration policy.
That version of Twitter still exists, if you make good use of the block and mute buttons to sift out the bile. The joy is still there. And it’s still the place to get breaking news hours before it reaches anywhere else.
When Joe Biden announced he was standing down as the Democratic nominee, he didn’t give an interview to CNN or to the New York Times – he took to Twitter. That says it all.
So let’s not let the trolls win. If nothing else, I refuse to leave while there are so many excellent cats to follow.
Rachel Cunliffe is associate political editor at the New Statesman. You can join her happy Twitter bubble at @RMCunliffe (if you play nice)
The Verdict: Doomed to doomscroll
Once again, pundits and addicts are penning moralistic or self-pitying x-eets proclaiming it is time to leave X. This time, it’s due to CEO Elon Musk stoking the UK’s far-right riots (he has repeatedly peddled “two tier policing” conspiracy theories).
Yet Spence is right that now is not the first time outrage and exodus have been declared. Is all the furore cumulative? He suggests so, yet even he doesn’t have the heart to leave.
The irony is that X/Twitter alone, as he purports, gets to the heart of the polemic. No one will leave unless everyone leaves, because X/Twitter’s power is in the fact that everyone is on it. For Cunliffe, the charm is deeper than fraternity, and is ultimately sentimental. It is true that the block and mute buttons are there to be pressed. Would we flock from Facebook if Mark Zuckerberg fanned the flames of facism? It’s hard to say. Would we all leave England if a despotic dictator got into power? It’s hard to say.
If Musk had created and launched X in its current form, would we flock to it? It’s hard to say. But the problem is, even if we want to ditch X, unless The Internet en masse dips, no one will – which means we’re doomed to doomscroll on.