Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) and Belfast City Council are the latest organisations to stop using their X (formerly Twitter) accounts.
The platform has come under scrutiny after several investigations were launched over concerns that its AI tool Grok was being used to create sexualised images of real people.
Several organisations, including media outlets, local councils, and charities, have chosen to stop posting on the platform.
The Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA) stopped posting on the platform in March last year, its Chief Executive Celine McStravick said, X “really flew in the face” of all their values.
‘Wasn’t a nice place to be’
McStravick said the decision came after a meeting with members from the voluntary and community sector.
She said it was “really clear” that the sector was “feeling hugely afraid of what was happening” on the platform.
“It was being used to spread lies, to breed hateful comments, to really encourage misogyny, and that wasn’t a nice place to be on the whole,” she said.
“There didn’t seem to be any kind of sanction for that type of rhetoric and really distasteful commentary.”
She added that in the early days of Twitter, it was a “very helpful social media platform” and Nicva “found it really good for engaging with people”.
“Over the past two years, it turned a different direction,” she said.
“It was very stark and very real. But when you went on to X, it felt like a very different place to be.”
‘Downward trend’
The Community Foundation for Northern Ireland stopped posting on X in May last year.
David Kennedy, from the foundation, said the “downward trend” in “unregulated comment” and “hate speech” led them to leave the platform.
He said the commentary on X “did not sit well” with the organisation.
“Not just our own comments, but those for organisations that we may have funded, who are doing positive community work, whether it be with the LGBT community, the newcomer communities – some of the hate speech directed against those communities was just, in our view, unacceptable.
“Quite frankly, we’ve seen since Elon Musk came in – the further deregulation of content on the platform.”
Musk, the boss of Tesla and SpaceX, bought Twitter in 2022 for $44bn (£38.1bn).
On Monday, Belfast City councillors ratified a vote to suspend the use of the council’s X account and await the outcome of the Ofcom review of the monitoring of Grok AI.
Green Party councillor Brian Smyth, who brought the motion to council along with Social Democratic and Labour Party councillor Séamas De Faoite, said it was “due to the serious safeguarding concerns we had around its AI app Grok”.
“I believe that Twitter has effectively placed profit before the safety of women and girls, through the huge explosion of sexualised deep fakes.”
Smyth said there is a “serious risk of reputational harm” if the council remained on the platform.
Dublin City Council suspended posting on X in January.
This week the Police Service for Northern Ireland (PSNI) also announced it had taken the decision to close district X accounts.
A spokesperson said this decision came after having “evaluated use and engagement”.
In a statement posted to their X account on Monday, QUB said they were “currently not using X”.
“This decision reflects our commitment to ensuring that our communications take place in spaces that are respectful, inclusive and aligned with the University’s values,” the post said.
In a statement to BBC News NI, a QUB spokesperson said: “X (formerly Twitter) has changed significantly over the years.”
BBC News NI has contacted X for comment.
BBC
