Government bodies need to get off X, now

Nobody in Ireland should be exposed to hate speech, bullying, or child sexual abuse images on X just to find out if their train is delayed, writes Clare O'Donoghue Velikic

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.

In a world in which everyone maintains a sign in their window pledging belief in a system — whether they actually believe it or not — it takes courage to be the first to take down one’s own sign. But that first act of courage inspires others, which in turn creates space for the less brave to do the same.

This is what needs to happen on the social media platform X. Sometimes referred to as the channel "previously known as Twitter", X bears few similarities to the digital town square which many of us enjoyed a decade ago.