Back in 2008 when I first joined, Twitter was a lifeline for me. I had Glandular Fever which knocked me out for months and it was incredibly isolating. But here was a community of people I could communicate with in real time, many of whom became friends in real life.
There was the Formula 1 crowd. My life was made when then Brawn driver Rubens Barrichello replied to me.
Of course there were the growing community of Lib Dems – and Jo Swinson was quickly recognised for her authentic use of the platform not just as a broadcast mechanism, but a means of engagement.
Back then, it was truly fun, though looking back, I can’t believe I did one of these things:
Where else, before you’ve even got out of bed in the morning can you:
discover that the Lib Dems have won a by election in St Austell and Newquay, where Tory PPC Caroline Righton recently smeared Liberal Democrat candidate Stephen Gilbert;
give Nadine Dorries some advice on how to tweet pictures from her Blackberry (not in the same league as my friend Sarah (@soggous) who recently helped Jenson Button’s girlfriend fix her Mac, mind you);
engage in intelligent discourse about the relative merits and demerits of Google Wave which included the phrase, from Charlotte Gore, “It’s collaborative, rich media, non-linear communications!”?
However, in recent years, it has become a much darker, more sinister place where dangerous misinformation and prejudice is spread with impunity. This week, confirmation of a new low came.
From The Guardian:
The posts offer a new level of detail on how the images are generated and shared on X, with users coaching one another on prompts; suggesting iterations on Grok’s presentations of women in lingerie or swimsuits, or with areas of their body covered in semen; and asking Grok to remove outer clothing in replies to posts containing self-portraits by female users.
Among hundreds of posts identified by Nana Nwachukwu as direct, nonconsensual requests for Grok to remove or replace clothing, dozens reviewed by the Guardian show users posting pictures of women including celebrities, models, stock photos and women who are not public figures posing in snapshots.
While the platform later clarified it would limit this facility to paid users, this really is not enough. Think about it? You can abuse women’s privacy if you can afford to pay a relatively small sum per month. That is not ok.
All this was too much for the UK Parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee who announced that it would be withdrawing from the site. The Committee’s vice chair, our own Christine Jardine has also left as reported in The Guardian:
Another, the Liberal Democrat MP Christine Jardine, said she was leaving the platform, calling the images generated by Grok “the last straw”.
Jardine said she had taken the view that X was a good way to communicate with constituents. “But I cannot in all conscience continue to use a platform which seems unwilling to act against this grossly offensive and abusive online behaviour towards women and girls,” she said.
In the past couple of days, Lib Dem MPs including Lee Dillon, Martin Wrigley, Tom Morrison, Vikki Slade, Caroline Voaden, Danny Chambers have said that they won’t be posting any more.
Our Mark Pack used a House of Lords question tochallenge the Government to reduce its use of X.
This is the first post in probably 15 years where my Twitter profile has not been linked to my profile on here. I have severely cut back on my Twitter use in recent years and hardly ever post, preferring Bluesky instead.Similarly, at Lib Dem Voice we have been winding down our use of X and preferring our Bluesky profile instead.
If you haven’t yet moved to Bluesky yet, you might find Jennie Rigg’s Lib Dem starter pack helpful – there are lots of Lib Dems to connect with.
Do we think it is now time for the party to quit Twitter completely? Some people will argue that there are still some good people there and this is a way of reaching them. But those people are also likely to be on other platforms too. Another argument is that while the journalists are there, then we should be too. But surely our success in getting into the press and broadcast media is based on working with and building relationships with journalists, not just relying on them to read our tweets.
A motion has been submitted to Scottish Conference calling on the Scottish party to stop using the platform because of the misogynistic, racist, homophobic, transphobic content it actively promotes to users. Whether it will be selected for debate is another thing.
Everyone has to make their own decision about these things. For me, in its current form I won’t miss it but I do look back fondly to the days when it was a much better place. What do you think?
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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20 Comments
“Do we think it is now time for the party to quit Twitter completely?”
One argument for continuing use of Twitter not made here is that to drop it would be withdrawal from the debate – effectively surrender to the owners and users of Twitter. It is the opposite of marching to the sound of gunfire.
If users (*) of Twitter never hear our arguments undistorted by our enemies, there is no chance of then changing their minds. For those who don’t want to change their minds, without use of Twitter by the likes of us, they will not see that they are not the “common sense majority” they think they are.
As someone once said, it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
(*) By which I mean the consumers of Twitter content, not just the producers of it.
@ Tristan,
That might be true if
a) X’s algorithm wasn’t designed to promote right-wing views and suppress alternatives; and,
b) an increasing number of supposed views weren’t simply bots.
There is certainly an appetite out there for something that is more like what X used to be but, by clinging to a memory of what Twitter used to be, rather than what X is, governments and organisations are effectively supporting a rogue medium.
I gave up on X last spring, and had a sense that I’d probably left it too long even then. Bluesky has, for me, been a significant improvement even if it doesn’t wholly satisfy yet. But, if journalists and politicians use it more, that will help.
Like Mark, I have stopped using X and deleted my account. It is now just a hate space and no self respecting Liberal should go anywhere near it.
There is no good reason why the party should continue to use X. We should lead by example not make excuses to stay.
Given the flight from X, no-one we might want to communicate with is still on it
“no self respecting Liberal should go anywhere near it”
Self respecting liberals should not make liberal arguments to our enemies?
I can’t agree.
How else do we change their minds?
The “someone I mentioned was of course Christ. The full story is (as Matthew told it)
“And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.
And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.
I stopped using Twitter/X in November 2024. Reasons for doing so included the platform’s campaigning for Trump and finding that vehemently antisemitic comments* aimed at me “didn’t break community rules”.
I have not however deleted my accounts as then others could take my user handle and I don’t want that. Both accounts have a pinned post made in November 2024 that informs people to find me on BlueSky. I haven’t used X since pinning those posts.
*These comments arose because I was defending the right to asylum citing the fact that my German Jewish Grandma found safety here. The Community Security Trust, a Jewish community organisation confirmed that previously such comments would have triggered disciplinary action.
I use it because I want to understand why populist political parties are doing so well. I don’t want to spend much time with a platform that is an echo chambre for my opinions. I agree it is disturbing to see some of the extreme right wing opinions on there, but these views are becoming mainstream and this is something we have to come to terms with or we will just be continually shocked at what is going on. Instead of being shocked we should be prepared and ready with our own response.
@Tristan – I think the problem with the ‘withdrawal from the debate’ view is that it assumes that what occurs on X these days actually is a “debate”, or that the algorithm will serve your post up to anyone who’s mind will be changed by it.
It’s a business, it’s product is rage, and even if you don’t have premium membership you are still paying with your eyeballs.
I wouldn’t give my custom to any other business with such a damaging “product”, and with an owner who’s views are so abhorrent and contrary to my own values.
@Nick Baird
“I wouldn’t give my custom to any other business with such a damaging “product”, and with an owner who’s views are so abhorrent and contrary to my own values.”
Individually, and if this were any old product I might agree. But:
1 Musk won’t change his view or behavior if we boycott X: he and his like probably see it as victory because they have succeeded in shouting us down.
2 conversely, it’s hard to see how liberals contributing benefit the far right – either politically or commercially.
3 Indeed by contributing liberal views and arguments X is improved and Musk and his like lose.
4 I find it hard to believe the entire X audience is bots and unconvertable far right types.
Besides, Caron’s question was about whether the Party (and thus we as politically active people) should use X, not as individual consumers.
I think Liberal Democrats should be using platforms that offer genuine debate and don’t have algorithms that deliberately support far right and downplay our views.
Put your time and energy into better platforms and don’t waste it on posting on X as that is effectively endorsing X. Keeping a handle on X may be sensible to avoid it being highjacked but also use it to signpost that you are actively posting elsewhere..
Also we should encourage local councils and national agencies to do the same and to prioritise the more responsible platforms over those that are abusing social media.
Tristan Ward I can’t imagine you’re suggesting that Jesus would condone CSAM? If so, you’re reading the wrong book.
X is a waning platform. It’s mostly a walled garden so tweets have little organic reach outside of people logging in. MAUs include bots, spam etc and still hit a maximum of 25M. Reddit is bigger and not login gated, ranks much higher in seo, doesn’t have a ceo calling for the overthrow of the uk government or threatening scanctions if their ability to produce horrific CSAM and isn’t currently a platform the Lib Dems are campaigning against. And yet, there’s no outrage over MPs not being there. X used to be cool(I know the former CEOs, I miss the glory days too), it’s now a cesspool of white supremacists, child abusers and 10 journalists & politicians who refuse to accept that of you lay down with dogs, you will itch with fleas. Why the party that’s condemning the platform the loudest is still active on it is beyond me.
Those on this thread who continue to use X, are naive if they think that it will enable them to counter the extremist views that now dominate twitter. The whole setup of this ailing platform is designed to promote extreme right wing views and belittle any who don’t share them.
Withdrawing from X and refusing to fund it through ads will, eventually, kill it.
As Liberals we should not be helping its survival in any way. The party should stop using it immediately.
Yes. It’s time the party stopped using X. Many candidates have done so. Likewise many councillors and many councils, prompted by LibDem councillors, have stopped.
I’ve just seen the Party is calling for X to be investigated for (effectively) enabling child sexual abuse. That seems right, and it follows that in these circumstances the Party should stop using X.
@ Sarah. You imagination is not at fault – I don’t think Christ would have cordoned CSAM. What Christ did do was go among sinners and attempt to get them to change their ways. I think that as a general rule liberals should do the same rather than run away to indulge their/our consciences.
There’s an argument that says the party may be less effective in promoting liberalism generally if it continues to use X. When Ed Davey called out Musk (on X and elsewhere) for inciting violence in the UK and interfering with UK politics Ed got 1.8 million views and loads of good PR on the side, so I’m sceptical of this argument. I doubt refusing to use X will have the slightest effect in closing it down.
Manipulation of images has been available since the outset of Photoshop . In regards to the recent and understandable anger at Grok being used for sexualised images – One of the biggest online social media sites that has a very poor track record on the above is Snapchat..Should action be taken against that. ? …..Of course the other side of X is that it allowed an independent journalist armed only with a smartphone and twitter account in revealing wide scale fraud in the Billions that ultimately brought down a governor in the US.
“One of the biggest online social media sites that has a very poor track record on the [use of sexualised images] is Snapchat..Should action be taken against that. ?”
If what is going on is similar to what is happening on X, then probably yes.
@Greg Hyde, you should seriously consider touching some grass. You’re spouting a lot of far right American disinfo across posts from your fundamental misunderstanding of how American LEO rules of engagement work to you thinking that Walz was involved in a wide ranging fraud that was uncovered by an ‘independant journalist” when Nick Shirley is a longtime Maga conspiracy theorist who has raised allegations that have not been proven credible. The convicted fraudsters in MN care are white women so far… If you’re trying trying to operate in good faith here, I’d highly suggest you spend less time on X and more time reading credible news sources. If you’re here to condone CSAM you might find this isn’t the best fit for you.
I think the Liberal approach should always be to prioritise the rights of individuals over powerful elites – and the big global tech companies are certainly powerful elites. The image files of individuals are data and are therefore subject to GDPR. There is guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office on how companies using AI should be upholding the rights of individuals, it is outdated with respect to generative API but marked for review.
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/artificial-intelligence/guidance-on-ai-and-data-protection/how-do-we-ensure-individual-rights-in-our-ai-systems/
Nevertheless the principle is there that individuals still have their usual GDPR rights to rectification and erasure, and that this also applies to training data held by the companies using AI. We should be ensuring that companies make individuals aware of their rights and provide mechanisms to make it easy for people to exercise them.
I’ve just left X. It’s becoming a cesspit of hate and I am not prepared to tolerate any more. If anyone wants to find me I am now on Blue Sky. @richardmwhelan1.bsky.social
“I don’t think Christ would have cordoned CSAM.”
Indeed. It could (and has been by theologians with a much deeper knowledge of the Bible than any of us here on this board) argued that this is one of the few situations where Jesus supported the death penalty; Matthew 18:6.
In an earlier post predictive text decided I meant to say there is good reason, when I meant there is NO good reason. I do not think the party should remain on x for a minute longer.
Thank you Mick, this has now been corrected – Ed.