As the UK exploded into riots in the wake of the mass stabbing attack in Southport, which left three children dead, growing unease over the influence of social media came to a head.
False information and conspiracy theories, spread by bots, extremists, trolls and influencers, had long been a cause for concern on platforms like Tik-Tok, Twitter and Facebook, and grew worse after the acquisition of Twitter, subsequently rebranded as X, by Elon Musk.
In the wake of Musk’s takeover, studies by campaign groups and BBC researchers identified an increase in hate speech and conspiracy theories.
False rumours about the identity of the Southport murder suspect, circulated on X and other platforms, have been implicated in the explosion of violence that followed across the UK. It prompted an exodus from Musk’s platform, with the Guardian reporting that some Labour MPs were considering quitting the site.
After the riots, a survey by Savanta found that a third of Britons were thinking of quitting the platform. Political research director Chris Hopkins told Research Live: “The ease at which disinformation spread on social media during the Southport murders and subsequent riots, alongside Musk’s personal actions, suggests that the public may now have reached an inflection point with both X, and Musk himself. A majority of the UK’s X users think the platform has got worse under Musk, with three in 10 saying they’re planning to leave. The public disagree with his whole approach to social media, and he can’t tap into a deep well of personal popularity either, as he attempts to fight off potential further regulation and even legal action.”
Related: Co-op movement responds to wave of riots across UK
But where does that leave ethically minded organisations – including Co-op News – which have long relied on Twitter/X to promote content, services and goods, develop networks, spread messaging and promote brand awareness? As the nature of X changes, many of these organisations are finding engagement with posts tailing off, so it is becoming less valuable.
The dilemma indicates a basic contradiction in the structure of such platforms: their value is in the networks created and content generated by their users, making them a co-operative, creative endeavour. But without an ownership model to match, those users can lose control of what they have built – and one wealthy individual can undo all their hard work just by buying that platform and changing its ethos. There are also concerns over the ownership and monetisation of users’ data on social sites.
These problems have long been a concern for the co-op movement, in particular the tech-minded leaders of the platform co-op sector. In the US, these activists even led a campaign for a user buyout of Twitter in 2016. The campaign helped inspire the Exit to Community movement, which encourages the sale of new innovations into co-operative rather than corporate ownership.
But is it time to leave X for good? There is also a case to be made that co-ops and other progressive actors should stay to promote their message and counter misinformation on the site. Co-ops in particular are involved in the UN’s sustainability agenda for 2030, – the subject of a number of wild and hostile conspiracy theories – and offer a more accurate and positive take on the subject.
And Nathan Schneider, a ringleader of the Let’s Buy Twitter campaign, says the question of whether co-operators should quit the site is “a hard thing”.
“No social media company is above reproach,“ he added, “and it can be unfair to ask people and co-ops to renounce one and lose the good potential outreach they could gain. I have not personally left X simply because some of my communities are there and that matters more to me than whatever nonsense Elon has gotten himself into. But at the same time I have tried to focus my social media diet more on alternatives like Mastodon and Bluesky, and I could see value in helping co-ops develop an appropriate strategy for doing that too.
“This year my lab will be running an incubator for people trying to build a community on alternative social networks, so this is something I’m passionate about.”
Mastadon is a free and open-source social media site, backed by crowdfunding and led by a German non-profit, while Bluesky is a decentralised microblogging social platform and a public benefit corporation.
Co-operators may find them less toxic – but will have to start from scratch in building their networks, and may miss the wider audiences of X as much as they dislike the extremist messages posted by some users.
