Months before Elon Musk made his $44 billion move into social media in 2022, he tweeted that "for Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral". So much for that, said Siân Boyle in The Observer. The proliferation of "alt-right diatribe, hate speech and bots" on the renamed X led to mounting disquiet among users, which reached a climax after Donald Trump's election victory.
X's newest rival, Bluesky, gained one million new users over just 24 hours last week, taking its total to 16 million. That's small fry compared with Twitter's estimated 586 million monthly active users. But some wonder whether this week will go down as the beginning of the end for X. The platform has effectively become "Truth Social premium", declared one analyst. Indeed, there is speculation that a merger between X and Trump's platform could be in the works. If that happens, whose interests would take priority? In the ongoing balkanisation of social media, the former Twitter could "fade away" or morph into an authoritarian "political super-app masquerading as social media".
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Discrimination: Expanding the definitionFeature The Supreme Court ruled in favor of a straight woman who sued her gay boss for discrimination
-
Crime: Why murder rates are plummetingFeature Despite public fears, murder rates have dropped nationwide for the third year in a row
-
Education: America First vs. foreign studentsFeature Trump's war on Harvard escalates as he blocks foreign students from enrolling at the university
-
Discrimination: Expanding the definition
Feature The Supreme Court ruled in favor of a straight woman who sued her gay boss for discrimination
-
Qatar's power playFeature The tiny Arab nation is buying friends and influence in Washington. What does it want?
-
Ábrego García: Why the White House blinkedFeature Kilmar Ábrego García returns to the U.S. after being illegally deported, but his legal fight is far from over
-
Musk climbs down after messy MAGA breakupFeature The Tesla CEO apologized after facing backlash for a series of social media posts criticizing Donald Trump
-
'Postal commemoration is especially befitting'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Wall Street has coined a new term for Trump's tariff threatsFeature TACO stands for 'Trump Always Chickens Out'
-
Democrats: Solving the 'man problem'Feature Democrats are spending millions to win back young men
-
Deportations: A crackdown on legal migrantsFeature The Supreme Court will allow Trump to revoke protections for over 500,000 immigrants
