Why you should leave X

A rallying cry to progressives everywhere...

Yesterday, Tesla owner Elon Musk appeared at a far-right rally organised by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson). He urged an insurrection in Britain, telling the crowd: “You’re in a fundamental situation here where, whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you… You either fight back or you die.”

This was all entirely on-brand for Musk, who has been using his monumental personal wealth in an attempt to seemingly incite a race war. He has also been Robinson’s best mate for months – even bankrolling his legal fights.

“You are the media now”, Musk posted on X in response to Robinson yesterday. The richest man in the world has created a social media platform that advertises the views of one of Britain’s most notorious Islamophobes, and apparently we’re not supposed to react with abject horror.

But Robinson isn’t Musk’s only pet xenophobe. He has fine-tuned his algorithm to promote a glistening array of far-right content, pushing it into feeds whether users want it or not.

It’s natural to feel torn about the demise of Twitter. For many of us, it was once the indispensable tool of public debate. Years of work went into cultivating communities, sharing stories, and amplifying causes. It’s not easy to walk away from that – nor from a shedload of followers, if you have them. As I’ve written previously, I don’t think I would be a (moderately) prominent journalist without Twitter.

But here’s the truth: Twitter no longer exists. X is something else entirely. It’s a megaphone for extremism, controlled by a deranged oligarch who has declared his hostility to sane, democratic politics. And staying on the platform doesn’t balance things out – because there is no level playing field. Musk can tilt the scales whenever he wants, adjusting the algorithm, boosting the most radical viewpoints, and burying others.

Leaving X isn’t about surrendering ground. It’s about refusing to lend legitimacy to a platform being weaponised against democracy.

The power of X – as it was with Twitter – is that opinion-formers continue to use it: journalists, politicians, institutions. If they move elsewhere, the platform’s political aura will fade. If they stay, Musk will be able to continue to poison political debate.

Take just one small example. Last week, Today programme presenter Justin Webb suggested that people on “platforms like Bluesky” were celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk. I have been on Bluesky for a decent amount of time now and can say with some authority that it is an infinitely less toxic and violent place than X. Yet my guess is that Webb read some of the conspiracy theories flying around Musk’s platform (he’s not even on Bluesky) and decided to broadcast them to millions of people on BBC radio.

This rejection of X should apply as much to governments as to individuals.

The Labour administration, in particular, has to recognise the danger. Its Conservative predecessors were skilled at shaping the information landscape, pouring energy into building up ideologically sympathetic media outlets like GB News. Labour’s instinct has been the opposite: to try to make peace with platforms that are sharpening their knives.

But Musk’s X cannot be pacified when he has declared war against not just an individual party but against much of the British public.

There are alternatives being built. There are new communities growing. Progressives should put their weight behind them, not out of purism but out of pragmatism. Our democracy depends on creating healthier spaces for debate, and refusing to feed those that are openly, unashamedly trying to incite a civil war.

So yes, walking away from X is difficult. It means stepping into the unknown. But it also means helping to break Musk’s hold on our politics. And I can think of few worthier causes right now.

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