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“I mean, in general, I think it was kind of like a Jenga puzzle, and at some point, the puzzle just collapsed,” said Darcy. “He had done one thing at a time, removing one piece at a time of what made Twitter worth spending time on. It became clear that this was going one direction. It was a one way train, and I did not want to be on the train anymore.”
“I actually think I had a fairly open mind early on, at least, when Musk expressed some interest in purchasing it,” said Darcy. “But I’m not sure I ever anticipated this… I don’t think I ever anticipated getting to the point where I’d leave the website altogether.”
Musk’s chaotic stewardship of the social media behemoth has fueled an exodus of other users. Darcy cited data from multiple research firms and public sources, reported
by NBC News, that found usage of the site has declined overall every month since November 2022. “I do think a lot of people have reduced the amount of time on, or content they’re posting on, Twitter,” he said.
Some publications that left the platform said they did not face problems as a result. Six months after leaving, NPR reported that it has
only lost 1% of its website’s traffic as a result.
Indeed, media analytics company Chartbeat found that Twitter accounted for
just 1.1% of its clients’ referral traffic in February 2023, lower than any point in the five years prior.
Others have struggled after quitting Twitter.
Frankie Huang, the co-editor of
Reappropriate, an Asian-American and Pacific Islander feminist blog, told Mediaite the site suffered following its exit: “To be blunt,
Reappropriate is pretty fukked without Twitter at the moment. We had relied on Twitter as a public utility and never imagined that it would fall apart in such a rapid and disastrous manner.”
A survey
Reappropriate ran of its readers showed “an overwhelming majority of readers find us through Twitter, which meant we were completely reliant on Twitter functioning properly to be seen at all,” Huang said.
Other outlets that have remained on the platform have seen their referral traffic drop. Social media engagement firm NewsWhip found in September 2023 that
The New York Times, which Musk has called a “mouthpiece of the state,” saw posts with links to their articles receive much lower visibility on Twitter compared to other media websites.
“If you look at everything that he’s done – and this is not even including the fact that sometimes, the site’s basic features don’t function that well anymore – I just don’t know how you can look around in that space and decide that that’s where you want to put your time and effort,” said Darcy.
In the meantime, alternatives are vying to take Twitter’s place as the premier text-based platform,
with varied levels of success among journalists. Threads and BlueSky have proven the most popular, while Mastodon and Spill have pulled some popular media personalities but little mainstream traction.
“In my perfect world, the ‘Fediverse’ would kick into gear and allow people to just interact across different platforms,” Darcy said. In the absence of that infrastructure in place,
Reliable Sources currently posts to Threads, Instagram, and Linkedin.
“I don’t know if there’s one platform out there that’s the ‘perfect’ platform right now,” he said. “I will say, though, our primary platform at
Reliable Sources is a newsletter where we have a direct relationship with our audience, and there’s no middleman or algorithm that’s stepping in the way.”
Meta, the operator of several social media websites including Threads, has had
an adversarial relationship with media as well. “I think that some of the things that are said and done are concerning, in terms of what Meta is doing,” Darcy said. “I am no stranger to criticizing Meta, or Mark Zuckerberg, or [Instagram head]
Adam Mosseri. But I don’t think they’re governing their platforms in the same realm as the way Elon Musk is governing Twitter, or X.”
The other journalists that spoke to Mediaite also have given the smaller alternatives a shot. “I joined Bluesky about a month and a half ago, and so far it’s been fine. Most of the people I liked following on Twitter are on there and it’s not as crowded,” Velasquez said.
Huang, who had “completely abandoned Twitter” in March, said they “have grown somewhat fond of Bluesky, though I withhold any real optimism about it replacing Twitter for me as a distribution platform for my work and what we publish on
Reappropriate.”
“I still use Instagram to connect with friends, but professionally I’m probably sticking to LinkedIn,” Chen said, because “the platform was built for that.”
Whether any alternative works out, or another Twitter is needed at all, remains one of the great quandaries for the media industry. “Regardless of any problems with the site, journalists have a very unhealthy relationship with Twitter,” Darcy said. “Everyone in the industry is, or has been for a while obsessed.”
Huang, describing Twitter currently as “a clown car on fire,” said “I do think newsrooms should still continue to use it, in the spirit of taking up some space so misinformation [doesn’t] take up all of the space.”
Rather than “helping keep the site alive,” Huang argued journalists should abandon the platform in the hopes of hastening its demise. “We should just nuke it from orbit at this point.”
“I think there is no harm in still using it professionally, if you have the capacity,” Chen said, but she “probably” won’t use it again because “there is so much noise in the world already.”
One conclusion was consistent among the journalists that spoke with Mediaite: the only way they’d consider returning is if Musk was no longer in charge. “I think as long as he’s at the top of a platform, that platform’s not going to be stable because he has proven that he does not govern in a stable way,” said Darcy.
“I never had a large audience on my personal [Twitter] account, so it’s not as though I lost a megaphone or anything,” Velasquez said. “I do miss seeing really smart people in conversation, but I don’t miss how much time I spent on that site, if that makes any sense. I’ve taken back some of my brain space.”
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