Yes, I know what it is now known as. When the Muskification began two years ago, I wrote that this was the beginning of its demise. I said then, “Troll Tweeting by your CEO is not a way to set corporate (or national) policy.” How true, even now.

Since then, I haven’t posted there. I still have my account, mainly because I don’t want anyone else with my name to grab it. But I have focused my efforts in content promotion over on LinkedIn. This week I give a more coherent reason why you might do the same and follow in the footsteps of The Guardian, who announced they are moving off the platform earlier this month. They said, “X now plays a diminished role in promoting our work.”

I got a chance to catch up with Sam Whitmore in this short video podcast. We discuss why PR pros should follow my example. Sam and I go way back nearly 40 years, when we both worked as reporters and editorial managers at PC Week (which has since been unsatisfactorily renamed too). Sam takes the position that PR folks need to stick with Twitter because of historical reasons, and because that is where they can get the best results of coverage by their clients and keep track of influential press people. I claim the site is a declining influence, and so toxic to anyone’s psyche, let alone their client’s brand equity.

In January 2023, I wrote a series of suggestions on Twitter’s future, including how hard it will be to do content moderation (well, hard if they actually did it, which they apparently don’t) and how little operational transparency the social media operators now have.

Since then, Twitter has become the platform of outrage. As my colleague Scott Fulton points out, this is different from encouraging engagement.  If I state a point of view on X, the only way I can expect my statements to be amplified is if they can be rebutted or maybe repudiated.” My colleague Tara Calishain pointed me to a post on The Scholarly Kitchen, where several of its contributors point out their own movements away from Twitter.

Is Sam or I right? You be the judge, and feel free to comment here or on LinkedIn if you’d like.