Members of Parliament, Ministries, and governments across Canada all use the social media platform X (formerly Twitter). This used to make sense, but X is very different from old Twitter.
Today X is owned by Elon Musk, a non-elected member of a foreign government that just put crippling tariffs on Canada. While Trump talks about making us the 51st state, Musk has said that “Canada is not a real country.”
Are the conversations on X worth it?
In our opinion, X has become increasingly toxic. Under Musk, the amount of hate on X has increased, along with conspiracy theories and disinformation. Some of the platform’s most notorious perpetrators of this kind of content have been reinstated, while pro-Nazi accounts verified by X have “flourished.”
There are better alternatives, like Bluesky, where good faith conversations are possible.
Governments and officials are leaving the platform.
People are bailing on the platform, and governments, officials, and public institutions need to go where real people are. In Canada, The District of North Vancouver and Cambridge, Ontario have both said goodbye to X.
The Supreme Court of Canada just announced their departure too.
More Canadian institutions and governments are considering ditching the platform, like the City of Halifax, municipalities in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver, and the Hamilton Public Library.
Globally, we’ve seen the cities of Barcelona and Paris leave X, as well as multiple members of Parliament in the UK and numerous Scottish councils. If Barcelona–which had 80 official accounts–can do it, so can we.
Help us tell Canadian MPs that it’s time to stop using X.
Canada and our Parliamentarians, please consider the fact that there are alternatives that many believe are better, like Bluesky. We have seen that good faith conversations are taking place in these alternative spaces.
We aren’t saying MPs should delete their accounts - if they did that, somebody could steal their handle and start impersonating them. But they don’t have to post on X anymore. We will find them on other platforms.