I used to curate Twitter... I know how to stop the X-odus

As someone who spent seven years as a Twitter curator, I've watched Elon Musk systematically dismantle a platform I loved, encouraging its users to be their worst selves while applying dangerously inconsistent approaches to crucial issues like hate speech and misinformation.

- MARC BURROWS

I've started to find a community that was once riveting and fun to be exhausting, dispiriting and maddening. And I am not alone.

The “X-odus” is real. Top brands like The Guardian, Balenciaga, Best Buy, NPR, and even the Clifton Suspension Bridge, have opted out already. It’s an easily observable phenomenon: in the last week my followers on the platform have shrunk by around 1,000, while by absolutely no coincidence, I seem to have gained 1,000 followers on rival platform Bluesky. It’s a familiar story across what we still stubbornly call Twitter (because literally no one calls it X).

I’d be able to enjoy the schadenfreude of Musk captaining a sinking ship if he wasn’t so dangerous. This is, after all, the man developing neural implants, attempting to colonise Mars and being given the task of restructuring bureaucracy in the US government. If he can’t maintain basic platform stability, how can he be trusted with tasks that literally involve rocket science, brain surgery and the smooth running of an entire country?