Elon Musk’s social plaything is now under investigation by the European Commission for violation of the Digital Services Act, for its AI tool Grok allegedly facilitating the production and dissemination of up to three million pieces of child sex abuse material and sexually abusive images of women. But the platform’s descent to this level is not sudden, and not a surprise.

When Musk purchased Twitter in late 2022, he made it clear roles such as trust and safety moderation and content policy were no longer a priority under his ‘profitability-first’ leadership. The rise in hate speech, bullying, doxxing and abuse was immediately visible.

Less obvious was the proliferation of content being posted and shared by bots — AI tools allowing coordinated bot networks to post from perhaps thousands of different accounts at the same time.

By the time Twitter became X in mid 2023, the analytics tools previously used by journalists and NGOs to monitor content on the platform had essentially been removed, by a prohibitive increase in charges to use the API (allowing the ability to ‘look under the hood’ and access platform data at scale). With little external oversight possible, we were instead expected to take Musk’s reporting data at his word.

It was commercial advertisers who laid bare just how significant the bot problem on X had become. During the Superbowl in 2024, cybersecurity firm CHEQ reported up to 75% of the traffic through to advertisers’ websites from ads on X came from bots, meaning only 25% of those clicking on ads on X were actually real people.

Ireland's user base drops

By the end of 2025 — even before the Grok AI scandal — X’s user base in Ireland had dropped by at least 20% according to datareportal.com (from 44% of Irish internet users in 2022 down to 36% now), though the bot proliferation and unreliability of data create suspicion the true user base may be even lower. 

Comisiún na Meán launched its own investigation into the platform late last year, for violating the Digital Services Act through its weakened content moderation processes.

X now ranks only eighth in the list of most used social and messaging platforms in Ireland. Its primacy as a channel for reaching the population at scale is based solely on Twitter’s legacy.

Which makes it baffling to read most Government departments continue to use X for their outbound comms with the Irish people, with several, including the HSE, An Garda Síochána and the Department of Transport (via TFI and the TII) providing essential real-time updates via this now-niche third party platform — some exclusively so.

The channel has become an unsafe online space, due to its lack of protection mechanisms against bullying and hate speech. This is particularly the case for women, young people and those from diverse backgrounds, but nobody in Ireland should be forced to be exposed to the vitriol and paranoia of X just to find out if their train is delayed.

The tone, language and rhetoric of X’s user base risks becoming normalised when it is the context in which we engage with Government bodies. Irish people are forced to wade through racism, misinformation and child sex abuse images to access information we need. 

By maintaining their presence on the platform, State agencies are legitimising it, suggesting to the public the level of discourse on X is ok. That it is normal for us to treat each other this way.

Which Government bodies will be the next brave greengrocer to take down their sign from X’s window, as Dublin City Council and the SEAI have done? To acknowledge Twitter is gone, and X is not an acceptable channel for the ordinary business of public services?

Last week’s floods were another example of many public services’ continued reliance on X to provide real-time updates. I had a brief discussion last week with the head of digital in a Government body still actively using the platform, who asked what alternatives to X could provide real-time updates to the public. The main answer is, as usual, the simplest. 

In 2026, most if not all websites are quick and easy to update via their content management systems. These systems allows short, time-stamped and reverse-chronological updates to be published instantly — effectively a live updates feed.

If a public body can update its website, it can provide live service information — there is no technical justification for outsourcing that responsibility to a private social media platform.

For the public to know they can visit a reliable website which provides up-to-the-minute information straight from source is an immediate enhancement to public service.

There are alternative platforms

But if Government agencies are determined to meet people where they are, there are at least seven other social media platforms which will allow them to reach far more members of the public. Facebook and Instagram remain the most used traditional social platforms, with their stories placement providing quick real-time update sharing, while their feeds can house longer-term information.

WhatsApp is the most used online application in Ireland, accessed by almost 90% of internet users, and a WhatsApp channel for real-time updates feels like an obvious choice. TikTok is more of a challenge to master for public sector comms, particularly given the primarily-video format and non-chronological algorithmic distribution, but it should not be ignored given its fast growth and ubiquity of use by under 35s.

Meanwhile, BlueSky and Mastodon are the closest replicas to the Twitter of old, which many of us long for, but neither have really taken off yet, in part because of the continued use of X by leaders, journalists, public bodies and more.

There are many different tactics Government bodies could deploy through online channels to ensure their messages reach their intended recipients, and though no social media is entirely clean and devoid of hate speech and bullying, there are few platforms quite as putrid and dangerous as X.

Therefore, the continued choice of some State agencies to spend public funds advertising on X is simply indefensible. Many, including Department of Justice and the Department of the Taoiseach, abandoned advertising on X in 2023.

There is a profound brand safety risk to Government messaging appearing in a feed sandwiched between xenophobia and sexually abusive material. Other advertisers on X include financial fraudsters, whose ads have featured political leaders such as Simon Harris, who described them as "despicable". 

Mediahuis — publisher of the Irish Independent — initiated High Court proceedings against X last year to try to force the removal of fake ads.

Of the commercial advertisers who remain on the platform, at least a quarter plan to cut back their spend according to marketing analytics company Kantar. And should you want to research more about the ads currently running on X, you’ll find the X Ads Repository page (ironically still deploying the Twitter URL https://ads.twitter.com/ads-repository) is down.

As a social media consultant, I chose to leave X some time ago, shutting down both my own and my business’s accounts. I guessed that at some point that might come back to bite me, though it hasn’t happened yet. But as a digital advertising agency, we have not seen paid media plans which called for ads on X in many years, nor have our clients ever asked to include it.

With unreliable data and the ubiquity of bot traffic, advertising on the channel is unlikely to have meaningful impact on society, and amounts to handing over your and my taxes into Elon Musk’s pocket. I won’t do this on behalf of my clients, and we should demand the Irish Government stop doing so too. There is no excuse any more.

• Clare O'Donoghue Velikic is a digital consultant and strategist. She previously worked at Facebook