Why I'm staying on Twitter

Progressive journalists - and progressives in general - are leaving Twitter, formally known as X. This has happened a number of times since Elon Musk bought the platform, but appears to have finally reached a (contained) critical mass for this particular constituency after the US presidential election. Some have moved quietly; others announced their departure with varying degrees of relief, exasperation, or flourish. A respectable cluster of UK progressives signed an open letter. Even The Guardian has upped sticks. Twitter’s nearest rival, Bluesky, has seen a user surge of upward of one million, and sorties to this new frontier suggest it’s a nicer, safer, friendlier and, currently, more progressive platform.

There are plenty of good reasons to leave Twitter. Since Musk’s takeover it has become an infinitely messier, more dysfunctional space, full of bots, spammers, and yes, actual neo-Nazis. The “for you” timeline appears to be dedicated to pushing far-right propaganda; the glitchy AI that now curates what used to be “Twitter Moments” is all too obviously conservatively biased; and throughout the past year I’ve found my own account following right-wingers and unfollowing progressives with zero input from me. Twitter is already a bruising, brutal place to be a woman or a trans person (and even worse if you happen to also be a person of colour, a journalist, a progressive, or all three.) Mysoginistic and racist abuse, unsolicited graphic advances, rape threats and death threats abound. It’s also set to become a much more dangerous place, with the block function being partially disabled (news of this change drove already half a million users onto Bluesky.) So for peace of mind, for well-being and even for safety, leaving what is routinely referred to as “this hellsite” makes perfect sense.

What doesn’t make sense, at least to me, is leaving Twitter as a form of economic boycott - or as an act of radical resistance.

The economic boycott doesn’t make sense because Twitter isn’t making money anyway. It was not profitable when Musk bought it, it’s not profitable now, and it’s not clear if it can ever turn a profit. It’s also pretty evident that Musk never bought it to make money - at least not directly; but even if he had, it’s quite obvious who his target audience is, and progressives aren’t part of it. Storming out isn’t half as satisfying when the person you are storming out on is standing there, holding the door.

The same applies to departure as resistance. I might be missing something, but I just don’t see the romance in a glorious and dignified retreat in the face of encroaching fascism. If Musk and his coterie of incels want progressives off Twitter, they should be made to spend time and resources kick each of us out individually, ideally by way of playing whack-a-mole with aliases and not without expensive litigation. What’s more, the vast majority of Twitter users aren’t progressive activists and don’t even perceive themselves as particularly political. Leaving them to the tender mercies of disinfo bots doesn’t serve anyone, certainly not progressive causes. Active, engaged progressives are by definition a minority. The right thing for us to do is almost always go where we suspect - or know- that we’re not welcome.

Moreover, departing a contested arena into a nicer space where we are less likely to encounter disagreement is calming for the nerves, but it doesn’t necessarily make us better activists. If I am to hope to understand why Trump won, for instance, I need to be listening to, and ideally speaking to, Trump voters. And besides, while I’ve certainly had my share of nastiness on Twitter, a select handful of people who disagree with me from the other side of many a political map have been invaluable as interlocutors. Or even in civilly but firmly calling me on BS when I got carried away in my own rhetoric; or in pointing out factual errors readers more aligned with me might be inclined to overlook. I like this. I wouldn’t want these kinds of interactions to disappear.

Now, this is obviously an individual choice in many ways, personal as well as political. It’s easier to take a stance like mine when you’re a straight white man (purely cumulatively, you get exponentially less violence on the daily). It’s also somewhat easier when you’re an organisation - which is why The Lead is staying too; we don’t take stuff thrown at our collective self too personally, and besides, we want to keep broadcasting at folks who disagree with us, whether for civic dialogue or for the LOLs. This is obviously not mandatory to all staff members; Zoe, for instance, has deactivated her (terrific) Twitter account and is thriving over on Bluesky. It’s also not mutually exclusive: both myself and The Lead have been on Bluesky for a while, and I’m also on Substack (writing about Israel-Palestine, mostly.) It’s perfectly reasonable for any of us to bow out of the Twitter arena, simply for a bit of peace and quiet, and a publication might well conclude that the site is now so broken that in terms of clickthrough, it’s not worth the effort to maintain a presence there at all.

But The Lead leaving altogether, as a political act? Whatever you think about deplatforming, it’s obvious that its purpose is to limit the exposure of new audiences to the excluded speaker, undermining their legitimacy and shortening their reach. Deplatforming yourself is not only self-defeating; it contradicts the very purpose of a progressive publication, especially in the face of rising authoritarianism. Trump’s triumph is a reason to dig in, not to retreat. Whatever happened to “No Pasarán”? We’re staying on Twitter until we get kicked out.

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