The greatest failures in politics are failures of the imagination.
If tomorrow Elon Musk would start a platform for information sharing and political debate, no one in their right mind would join. And yet, that is what our politicians, parties, governments and media do every day, simply because first Twitter, then X has become a fact of life.
Like a frog in slowly boiling water, we have become so desensitised to online awfulness that we can no longer imagine the real risks, blatant as they are, nor can we imagine life without X.
Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz is on X, though Musk explicitly used the plaform to influence the election campaign in favour of the far-right AfD. The European Commision is on X, though Musk has called them "traitors to their own people". UK Prime Minister Andy Burham is on X, though Musk has called civil war "inevitable" in his country. And the Economist is on X, despite Musk calling their editor-in-chief "a traitor to the West" for questioning him about such "predictions".
Somehow, we disassociate our presence on X from the threat it actively and deliberately poses to everything we stand for.
As the Guardian has reported, X is now silencing Saudi dissidents. It doesn’t take much creativity to imagine Musk taking his personal vendetta against Western democratic institutions further, weaponising the platform in the run-up to the next British or European elections – both firmly set in his sights. Then why do we insist on playing his game?
Bad habit
I have been a spokesman in Belgian and European politics for two decades, I understand the reluctance to leave.
A lot of us in democratic politics have invested time and effort in Twitter. We worked hard to grow a base. We hired specialised staff. We waded through growing amounts of filth just to show people we listen to all voices, even if they violently disagree with us.
We clung on to increasingly rare occasions when we had a proper online exchange with a real-life citizen. We thought we could at least push back, put some actual facts out there and burst some extremist bubbles. And so over the years we got a digital habit that is hard to kick.
But all that is gone now, like it or not. The whole idea of X is based on algorithms turned against openminded engagements, fact-based debates and interaction with democratic voices. Even if you leave Elon Musk's politics aside – big if! – X is beyond saving.
All social media platforms have problems, X is a problem. It has ignored outside checks on its behaviour and undone all internal quality controls. It is manifestly, unstoppably, proudly out of control. And we should no longer have anything to do with it. It is time for all democratic politicians, governments and particularly the EU-institutions to leave.
A signal moment
Many of us already have – Trump’s re-election and Musk’s role in it were a turning point – and many more will. But we need to do more. It is not enough for disappointed, decent democrats to leave by the back door. We need to do it together and en masse, loudly slamming the front door to show we have had enough.
Politicians, parties, groups, NGOs and government institutions need to pull out jointly, sending a strong signal that democracy can fight back. Two years before the European election campaign and with a bold, last-chance PM installed in Downing Street, we need to demand from the EU institutions to take the lead and create that signal moment.
Because the only thing that keeps X alive, despite the bots, the nudifyers, the Nazis and its increasingly deranged CEO, is the participation of precisely the people and institutions it keeps ignoring and attacking. The only thing that upholds the fiction of X as a free speech zone is the presence of democratic politicians who still pretend it is a forum for debate and a legitimate means of communications.
And the only thing that keeps the online bullies' party going, is people like us keeping their accounts alive for them to pick on.
But let’s not leave because we must – let’s leave because we can. It would not cost us anything. Unlike TikTok, which has millions of happy users, or Facebook, which for all its problems still has a genuine social role, X has already become purely political niche.
Whatever we would lose on X would be compensated elsewhere, on alternatives like Bluesky that will only really take off if we give up X for good.
And it would cost Musk dearly. In recent weeks, he has lost about half of his wealth. In terms of economic value, X has long ceased to be. But nothing would hurt him more than having to admit X as a platform is doomed. It plays an outsized role not just in boosting his ego, but in his faux-philosophical anarcho-nihilistic musings about post-humanity.
While we have nothing left to gain from being on X, he has everything to lose if we crash it.
So if we, as democrats and as Europeans, are looking for the strongest way to make a point against tech-fuelled fascism, X marks the spot.
