Why I’m X-ing Twitter
A personal reflection on watching something once brilliant become something dangerous.
Twitter used to be my favourite place on the internet.
Chaotic, yes - but electric. Sharp. Funny. Democratic in its best moments. It was where thought leaders mingled with meme lords, where breaking news shared a stage with biting satire. You could learn, laugh, and rage, sometimes all in one scroll.
It made you feel plugged into the cultural mainframe. It rewarded wit, curiosity, courage. And even when it was messy, it felt alive.
Now it feels like a morgue that’s been graffitied by Nazis.
Since Elon Musk took over, Twitter, now bizarrely rebranded as X, like a 14-year-old boy’s gamer tag, has been gutted and rebuilt into a mirror of its new owner - smug, chaotic, conspiratorial and thin-skinned. A billionaire’s sandbox where “free speech” means amplifying hate and monetising cruelty, while anyone pushing back is shadowbanned, dogpiled or simply deleted.
He reinstated white supremacists. Engaged gleefully with neo-Nazi memes. Endorsed antisemitic conspiracy theories. Axed moderation teams like they were deadweight, and then rolled out the welcome mat for grifters, fascists, and anyone willing to throw cash at a blue tick to scream into the void.
It’s no longer a platform. It’s a pipeline - one that runs straight from rage to revenue.
And in that ecosystem, progressive voices, especially those who are queer, trans, Indigenous, Black, Jewish, Muslim, disabled, or just inconveniently female - have become acceptable collateral damage. Harassed, doxxed, swarmed. Not just ignored by moderation but algorithmically punished for daring to exist publicly.
The agora is gone. The circus tent collapsed. What’s left is a scorched arena where trolls throw meat to the crowd, and the crowd pays to see who bleeds best.
I wrestled with leaving. Truly. There’s a case for staying - for watching the powerful, keeping a record, not looking away. But there’s a point where watching becomes enabling and there’s a difference between being informed and being infected.
So I’m logging off. Not because I’m afraid of ideas, but because this platform no longer trades in them.
And the alternatives? I’ve tried them all.
Threads feels like a corporate wellness seminar.
Mastodon is a quiet library where everyone’s shushing each other.
Bluesky has potential but mostly feels like Twitter with a concussion.
And then there’s Truth Social - a radioactive dumpster fire in a bald eagle onesie, where facts go to die and people mistake persecution complexes for patriotism. It’s not a platform. It’s a cult scrapbook with a comments section.
What’s missing is a place where real discourse can happen. Where ideology can be challenged, ideas sharpened, and arguments made without unleashing armies of anonymous bile merchants. Somewhere between TED Talk and bar fight. Somewhere human.
I still believe that space is possible.
We need a public square where liberals can spar with conservatives, where nuance can live, where sharpness isn’t cruelty and empathy isn’t weakness. But this is not it. Not anymore.
So I’m stepping away from the wreckage.
I’m reclaiming my attention, my peace, my standards.
I’m not leaving because I’ve given up.
I’m leaving because I still give a damn.
Goodbye, old bird.
You deserved better than this.
And honestly, so did we all.
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✉️ Email john.luxton@regenerationhq.co.nz
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