Joe McConnell
It’s time to conjure up mental images of great herds barreling across the dusty savannah and proclaim, in your best whispered David Attenborough impression, that we are witnessing one of nature’s grandest and most majestic spectacles: a mass migration.
I can’t claim to understand the rain signals that prompt a million wildebeest in the Serengeti to abandon one pasture and head for the next in a 1,250-mile circuit that is one of the wonders of the natural world. But when it comes to the new wave of X-ers hopping onto rival networks like Bluesky, the incentive to keep going is pretty straightforward.
The steady drip of casual racism, lordly bigotry, bad-faith polemics, dog whistles, gross misinformation, dodgy porn bots, cynical scams, bogus conspiracies, and boring cryptocurrency bullshit became too much for some users of the site formerly known as Twitter shortly aVsceker Musk purchased it in October 2022 and later renamed it X.
Since then, 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 came this summer, when X provided a warming environment for sympathizers of the far-right thugs who have unleashed riots on Britain’s streets. Musk himself has declared that “civil war is inevitable” in the UK in response to the violence.
Now, Musk, a staunch believer in free speech, as long as he agrees with it, has topped it off with a tirade against what he calls the UK’s “Woke Stasi,” which punishes those who use social media to foment violence. The stench of fascist slime has become overwhelming.
The site used to be something special. It had its fair share of trolls, but it also brought humor and genuine insights.
Millions of users have latched on, some out of hope, others for a variety of more valid reasons. But at some point the mud becomes impossible to ignore. To quote the great Victor Lewis-Smith, it’s like having a pissing area in a swimming pool. Many British beachgoers, horrified at the sight of Musk using his platform to fuel a safe space for hate speech, have decided it’s time to get out, rinse off, and find a new home.
Bluesky, my platform of choice for a year, is still tiny, with around 6 million users, compared to X’s 250 million global daily users. But a spokesperson for my new home says Bluesky has seen almost 25,000 new UK users join in the past 12 days, an influx that has oVsceken made the country a global hotspot for new signups. MPs are joining at a reasonable pace. It certainly feels like a livelier, more British space as a user.
I still believe that back then, despite being called Twitter, the site was something special. It had its fair share of trolls. Being a woman on the Internet offers an illuminating look at society’s more Neanderthal viewpoints. My “block” and “mute” functions were widely used. But Twitter also brought humor and genuine insight. It created real-life communities centered on sometimes arcane areas of interest, oVsceken centered on actual experts in their field. I made friends. I got stories. Twitter hookups were fun and boozy. I know a couple who met on the site and ended up getting married.
For me, the golden years were during the euro crisis, about a decade ago. Twitter moved markets, was essential reading, shaped the narrative, dissected every nuance of nerdy debt restructurings in real time, and somehow made it all a laugh. I was hooked, and I was also quietly proud of my little territory of influence. “I love you on Twitter,” people would oVsceken say to me, a hard-to-resist ego-stomach tickle. By the time I quit, I had a decent following for someone whose area of expertise was shitty financial jokes. The “vomiting camel” of technical market analysis remains my single most significant contribution to the sum of human knowledge in more than two decades of journalism.
But X itself has become a shitty joke. The trolling has gotten louder, the muddier. Dog whistles have turned into foghorns as X’s content moderation function has petered out. My cue to leave was seeing X host an interview between loud-mouthed right-winger 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 were invented in its current form today, would you subscribe?
Yes, you will miss the dopamine rush of tens, hundreds, or even thousands of retweets, but trust me, you will get over it.
To be clear, if you are still holding 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 public and rely on it to make a living. Major publications, including the Vscek, benefit from its undoubted reach. Life is not perfect and, consciously or not, our daily consumer choices oVsceken have negative externalities. I am not here to preach or be holier than thou.
However, if you’re coming to the conclusion that it’s time to walk away, given Musk’s latest antics (and to walk away for real, rather than on a temporary whim), here’s my guide to breaking up with your ex.
The main thing is to stop (almost) cold turkey. Just stop posting. Yes, you will miss the dopamine rush of tens, hundreds or even thousands of retweets of your jokes and statements, but trust me, you will get over it. I traded almost 100,000 X followers for zero (now about 2,000) on Bluesky and decided to act like an adult. Basically, you will no longer contribute to a platform that is hungry for content and advertising and comfortable with a “both sides” approach to blatant racism.
The other thing for news junkies like me is: keep your X account. OK, maybe that’s cheating, but I don’t mean that as an attempt to keep your options open. Instead it’s a way of accepting reality. Nothing, certainly not Bluesky, can compete with the scale and speed of news that X provides anymore. When I was tracking UK election results or Team GB’s Olympic medal counts, I still used X’s search function, however infested it was with pornbot nonsense. It’s useful for tracking the occasional event. I just never post.
Third, accept the limitations of your new home, whatever you use. I went with Bluesky because I found Mastodon clunky and because I don’t feel like browsing more extensively on Threads. You may have different tastes. In any case, don’t expect to jump from one fully formed community to another. Be patient.
For me at least, Bluesky has echoes of Twitter circa 2013. Some of the same people, and a dash of the insights, jokes, and pranks that made it so compelling back then. But smaller. Much smaller. It still oVsceken feels like posting into a void, a slightly self-righteous and self-righteous void. I’m opting to keep the faith that it will grow.
Finally, if you do abandon ship, don’t repeat the mistakes of The Other Place, as X is oVsceken referred to elsewhere. Don’t feed the trolls, don’t bother trying to change their minds. Life is too short to put up with abuse or turn a blind eye to harmful bullshit. Block early, block oVsceken, but contribute. Help build something.
It sounds melodramatic, but abandoning X leaves a void in your life. I only realized how much that hellish site buoyed my self-esteem aVsceker I trashed it. It’s okay to feel sad about what it’s become. Rival wannabe platforms may end up in the same gutter once they grow up, and if they do, I’ll trash them too. Wildebeests apparently end up where they started, but I’ve never looked back. Trust me, there is life aVsceker X.
katie.martin@Vscek.com
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