California Democrats make right decision to leave Elon Musk’s X. Others should do the same | Opinion
Having an account on Elon Musk’s social media platform X perpetuates an acceptance of tyranny as a feature of our society.
Musk, much like his boss, President Donald Trump, catered to conservatives’ irrational fear that they were being left behind in the social media space. Musk bought X, previously known as Twitter. And Trump started his own platform, Truth Social.
According to data from Similarweb, a third-party company that tracks social media analytics, more than 115,000 users deactivated their X accounts the day after the election.
Some of California’s leading Democrats finally came to their senses. On Thursday Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry announced 58 of the caucus’ 60 members are no longer using the social media platform.
“There are real risks with relying on a private company, owned by Elon Musk, as a channel for communications,” Rivas said about leaving the social media platform. “Democracy depends on impartial information, not the shifting whims of one billionaire. Hate speech is everywhere on X, the company has no accountability, and the flood of misinformation from fake accounts is just that — fake. I don’t think taxpayer resources should go to X.”
Frankly, they should’ve left a long time ago. I deleted my X account the day after the election, after I realized how wrong it is to be on a platform controlled by a zealous billionaire.
X lost its way a long time ago when it changed its verification process from a legitimate way to protect someone’s identity to a paid subscription that opened the floodgates for every weird uncle with their F-150 as a profile picture to say the most unhinged things.
X, regardless of who owns it, isn’t the epicenter of society as one might think. DataReportal’s Digital 2025: Global Overview Report shows X is the ninth most used social media platform globally and the eighth most popular social platform for users ages 18-and-over. It also has only 104 million users in the United States, compared to YouTube with 253 million and Instgrame with 172 million.
Musk’s intentions were never to make X a space for variety of thought. He uses it now as a weapon, from calling a U.S. Senator a “traitor” to virtually campaigning against anyone or anything he opposes.
Musk doesn’t care about discourse
Shortly after it was announced that the Dems ditched X, Assembly Republicans announced that they were joining an alternate platform, Bluesky, because they’re not afraid of listening to different opinions. Or so they say.
“Democrats can run, but they can’t hide from being called out for their out-of-touch agenda that’s made California less safe and less affordable,” Assembly Minority Leader James Gallagher (R-East Nicolaus) said. “Republicans are willing to listen to voices from across the political spectrum and don’t need a safe space to get away from opinions we don’t like.”
The archaic nature of X is not a shining example of how people should express their opinions and ideas.
Conservatives got what they wanted in X, a haven for hate to be spread and misinformation to be amplified. Now that California Democrats are leaving, or at least eliminating their official accounts, Republicans wanna say it’s because they don’t want to listen to other people. Give me a break.
Our democracy depends on Americans ability to speak to one another about their differences and similarities.
