Moving Off X: An Open Letter from UK Journalists

As UK journalists, we have used Twitter – now X – for many years. It has been a resource for story-gathering, network-building, and a megaphone for getting public-interest stories to a wider audience. And it has been a well of ideas and discourse.

Unfortunately that well is now poisoned.

All of us have seen X become more toxic and broken since Elon Musk took over in 2022.

Feeds have become less useful. Engagement has plummeted, except for those who will pay. Replies gain traction not through merit, but through the corrupted blue-tick system.

We have seen hate speech and abuse deliberately dialled up and amplified, boosted not just by the algorithm, but by the owner himself.

And England’s racist summer riots were one of many factors suggesting to us that X is not a neutral platform, but a space that now seems to glorify misinformation at a great cost to our public sphere.

Millions of people are ditching X, and we are doing so, too. We have taken the view that it is no longer a useful tool for objective reporting, but a weapon being wielded by a narrowing ideological set.

A tipping point is coming. Perhaps we are already in it.

After much consideration, we have taken the decision to move over to other platforms, in particular Bluesky. For some of us that means instantly deleting our X accounts, for others it is a more gradual process.

But we are all putting the majority of our efforts into building more constructive online spaces elsewhere for political dialogue and reporting.

Bluesky is becoming a new hub for political discussion, and we encourage other UK journalists to join and become active. We are already seeing far higher engagement on our posts there than we’ve seen recently on X.

And importantly, the mechanisms to limit abuse actually work.

We enjoyed Twitter while it lasted. It played an important role in shaping many of our careers. And it was, for a long time, the place to be for UK politics. We believe that time is now over.

Twitter is dead. Long live Twitter.

See you on the other side.

Signed,

[To add your name below, message here or email josiah@bylinetimes.com]

Signatories so far:

Josiah Mortimer, Chief Reporter, Byline Times
Max Colbert, freelance journalist
Kieran Smith, Journalist at the Financial Times and Times Radio
Deborah Bonetti, Chair of the Foreign Lobby in Parliament, Director of The Foreign Press Association in London
Emma Yeomans, news reporter, The Times
Harriet Marsden, staff writer, The Week
Tara Conlan, freelance media writer, The Guardian and Observer
Nick Davies, Former Special Correspondent, The Guardian
George Monbiot, author and journalist
Otto English, author and journalist
Mic Wright, freelance journalist
Robyn Vinter, North of England correspondent, The Guardian
Victoria Richards, Voices Editor. The Independent
Jamie Klingler, writer and cofounder of Reclaim These Streets
Peter Geoghegan, Democracy for Sale
Anthea Simmons, Editor in Chief, West Country Voices
Lewis Baston, author and political commentator
Karl Hodge, Course Director of Undergraduate Journalism at Leeds Beckett University and Technology Journalist
Conor McNicholas, editorial consultant (Ex-Editor NME and TopGear Magazine and former Chair of the British Society of Magazine Editors)
Tim Smedley, Editor of The New Climate
James Cracknell, Editor, Enfield Dispatch
Nic Boothby, French TV journalist based in the UK
Niall Christie, Third Force News
Lia van Bekhoven, Dutch journalist based in the UK
Tessa Szyszkowitz, UK correspondent for Falter, Austria
David Leigh, former investigations editor, The Guardian
Ally Tibbit, journalist
Tom Scott, writer and editor
James Moules, freelance journalist
Jane Duncan, retired journalist
Adele Walton, author and journalist
Matt Potter, freelance journalist for the BBC, Independent, Washington Post
KT Parker, screenwriter and writer for West Country Voices
Joshua Nichol, reporter at The Northern Echo
Carl Difford, journalist in Wales
Yukiko Kishimoto, Producer, Nippon TV London Bureau
Kenneth Wastell, financial journalist

Notes for Readers

Several UK ‘Starter Packs’ now allow people to follow many of these journalists and more in one click on Bluesky.

Nearly all the signatories are on this Starter Pack

https://go.bsky.app/7ZiGEcP