Since the 2024 U.S. election, which brought Donald Trump back to the White House, journalists have joined the masses of users leaving X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that once was deemed essential for covering breaking news and following public discourse.
Going back to Elon Musk’s acquisition of the platform in October 2022, some media outlets also have departed, among them NPR and Spanish newsroom La Vanguardia. The Guardian, which announced its departure in November, cited the prevalence of far right conspiracy and racist content, and Musk’s influence over shaping political discourse as reasons for leaving.
The growing absence of reporters and media outlets on X threatens to leave an audience of millions with less exposure to credible journalistic content, and in its stead lower-quality information.
As journalists consider whether or not to remain on X, I spoke with a few as they weigh the positives and negatives of departing the platform.
How it TranXformed
The value for journalists of Twitter, as it was known before it rebranded to X in 2023, was in its capacity to distribute news quickly to audiences and its function as a “town square,” allowing for debate and discourse from an array of perspectives, said Alex Mahadevan, director of MediaWise, a digital literacy initiative from Poynter Institute. It could reach more users across the world faster than other platforms, he noted.
“As a news consumer, you could go to Twitter to follow what’s happening,” Mahadevan said. “By reporting and putting your content on Twitter, it would end up in front of more people.” The recent exodus of journalists is rooted in declining content quality, changes in the platform’s algorithm to limit news circulation, and Musk’s actions and rhetoric, he explained.
Musk, a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump and today a “special government employee” holding significant power, is vocally opposed to journalists and the mainstream media. He has used X to amplify his views and spread disinformation, about immigration, voter fraud in the U.S. election and, more recently, on European politics, often in favor of far right parties.
Beyond the political discourse, Mahadevan also noticed an increase in racism and bigotry on his feed, which he said was his personal reason for leaving.
Before Musk bought Twitter, the platform had a more comprehensive approach to regulating mis- and disinformation and hate speech, Mahadevan said. Its Trust and Safety Council — an advisory group of independent civil and human rights organizations — was responsible for addressing harmful rhetoric, child exploitation, and extremism on the platform. After buying Twitter, Musk disbanded the council and laid off employees who worked to fight disinformation.
One of Musk’s signature changes to X was its verification system. The “blue check mark” — a distinction that had been given to vetted accounts such as those of celebrities, politicians, journalists and media publications — became available to anyone willing to pay for a premium account regardless of their credibility. X’s algorithm today favors posts by these premium accounts. Meanwhile, the platform’s Community Notes feature, which was created to fact-check false or misleading posts, has shown little impact. (In January, Meta, owner Mark Zuckerberg, announced his platforms would adopt a similar approach to combating false content, replacing traditional fact-checkers.)
Dan Gillmor, former columnist at the San Jose Mercury News and retired professor at Arizona State University, argued in 2023 that Twitter became unusable for journalists shortly after Musk bought it. He says it has only gotten worse.
“Musk has turned it into the social media where right-wing extremists can operate most effectively,” he wrote in an email. “Journalists need to face up to the fact that by actively participating there, they are actively helping Musk do these things.”
The SucceX stories
However much X has changed, with over 600 million daily users it remains an epicenter of mobile news consumption — and a tool some journalists continue to use effectively.
For example, Jake Sherman, founder of Punchbowl News, a breaking news publication that covers politics in Washington, D.C., uses X to report live from the U.S. Capitol to his over 400,000 followers. X’s punchy style of posts — usually just a couple of sentences, at a max of 280 characters for non-premium subscribers — allows Sherman and his coworkers to push out information quickly on fast-moving news in Congress.
Independent journalists also have used the platform’s reach to their benefit. Ken Klippenstein, for instance, has used his loyal following on X to promote his Substack publication. He has garnered thousands of views and engagements on X posts, helping drive high levels of traffic to his reporting.
Still, the continued utility for journalists and newsrooms isn’t universal. NPR, for one, found that leaving X has not negatively affected its site traffic.
The AlternaXives
Hoping to poach the millions of users who have left X, other social media platforms have offered themselves as an alternative.
Among the most prominent is Bluesky, a project started by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, which has a concept similar to X in functionality and design but offers users more ability to curate the content they see, through follower lists, topic-specific feeds, and anti-toxicity features. Mahadevan offered praise for the platform: “I am experiencing classic Twitter on BlueSky,” he said.
BlueSky’s usership grew rapidly after the 2024 U.S. election, but the surge has since slowed. The platform still has only a fraction of X’s total users, with 24.5 million as of December — and those who occupy Bluesky, Mahadevan said, tend to be college-educated liberals.
As left-leaning audiences leave X, the result could mean a partisan splintering of social media, he continued: X or Truth Social, the social media platform owned by President Trump, for the right-wing, and Bluesky or platforms like Mastodon and Threads more for the left-wing. This could put journalists, whose role is to serve the public, not political parties, in an awkward position.
The decision to leave or stay on X remains a personal call, said Mahadevan. For those who leave, there remain other avenues to reach conservative audiences, such as through broadcast TV, streaming, or online outlets.
“There are still people on X who deserve good information,” he said. “It’s an audience that still needs to be reached [...] but it’s not like they only consume news on X.”
Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash.
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