The observed decrease in X’s user interaction and its capacity to direct web visitors has become the foremost discussion, following several days of unfavorable media attention for the social platform helmed by Elon Musk.
During the past weekend, Nikita Bier, X’s product chief, and Nate Silver, a data analyst formerly with FiveThirtyEight, engaged in a dispute regarding X’s ongoing capability to channel visitors to content creators. This discussion was succeeded on Wednesday by a NiemanLab report, which indicated that embedding hyperlinks within X posts adversely impacts user engagement.
On Thursday, EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), a prominent digital rights advocacy group and not-for-profit organization, likewise declared its departure from X, citing diminishing returns from its shared content.
In an online article, Kenyatta Thomas, EFF’s digital outreach director, articulated that exiting X after nearly two decades on the platform was “not a decision we made lightly,” but clarified that the current metrics no longer justified their continued presence.
She reported that in 2018, EFF’s shared content on Twitter garnered between 50 and 100 million views monthly. However, by 2024, their 2,500 posts on the digital platform yielded approximately 2 million views per month. For the entirety of last year, EFF’s 1,500 posts accrued roughly 13 million views.
“To speak candidly, a post on X today attracts less than 3% of the views that a single tweet provided seven years ago,” Thomas penned.
The organization intends to maintain its presence on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and various other public social networks, underscoring that its participation on any platform does not signify an endorsement of those services.
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“We remain active because individuals on those platforms, too, are entitled to information. We persist because some of our most widely read submissions are those critiquing the very platform where we are sharing them,” Thomas elaborated. “X is no longer the arena where crucial discussions are unfolding.” (That smarts!)
EFF joins numerous other entities in abandoning X, following a series of notable withdrawals that have included various media outlets such as NPR, PBS, The Guardian, Le Monde, among others, alongside many scholars, public figures, local governmental bodies, and more.
While these news organizations might have had diverse motivations for departing X, the potential for website traffic could have compelled them to stay. For some, like NPR and PBS, their exit stemmed from a reaction to Musk’s choice to inaccurately classify them as “state-affiliated media.” This designation is typically reserved for government conduits that lack journalistic autonomy, exemplified by propaganda networks based in Russia and China. For others, such as Le Monde, their response was prompted by Musk’s strong connections with Trump.
However, asserting a position is simpler when one has minimal or no consequences to face.
In the current climate, any origin of web visitors holds immense value, as content providers navigate evolving digital user habits. As AI adoption rapidly accelerates, it severely reduces visitor numbers to publishers, concurrently with news sites observing fewer referrals from web navigators and Facebook. This situation has compelled many newsrooms to either succumb to financial strain or implement job cuts.
During his discussion with Silver, Bier contended that newsrooms were misemploying X.
Bier underscored that media organizations like The New York Times should be sharing content in a manner that fosters dialogue on X’s platform, rather than merely using X as an information stream to disseminate a simple title and a hyperlink. Silver, conversely, noted that even when he made the effort to stimulate internal platform discourse, it didn’t provide a substantial boost in terms of visitors to his website.
“The redirection to external website visitors is quite moderate,” Silver remarked on X. “Perhaps 2-3% of the audience for a Silver Bulletin article instead of ~1%.” He added that, in contrast, Twitter previously directed about 15% of FiveThirtyEight’s visitors.
Even some of Silver’s critics appeared to concur with his appraisal of X, which he disseminated in a digital bulletin. Specifically, X is now primarily controlled by right-leaning opinion leaders, and many leading profiles in terms of interaction exhibit inferior content quality. For example, Silver highlighted that the “Catturd” account, a conservative opinion shaper known for disseminating speculative narratives, garners greater interaction than The New York Times.
Musk, predictably, rejected this report, terming Silver’s data “bullshit” in his response.
NiemanLab’s independent study, which encompassed the most recent 200 posts from 18 major media entities, largely affirmed Silver’s declarations. It revealed that newsrooms incorporating hyperlinks with X posts experienced weak interaction, even affecting subsequent content.
This does not inherently imply that X is deprioritizing their content—the company asserts it ceased such practices—it might simply suggest that X is no longer as vibrant as it once was.
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