The news that Ofcom is to conduct an inquiry into X, specifically around its AI bot Grok and its use to create nonconsensual sexualised imagery of women and girls, won’t come as a surprise to anyone with half an eye on the news. What’s perhaps more surprising is that this is the first major discussion of the role the site has played in UK culture since Elon Musk took over the platform in 2022, and the way in which the views of its owner have had a direct impact on our politics.
There was a slightly surreal moment on Radio 4 late last year, when, just before 7am on the Today programme, a discussion took place around perceived socioeconomic decline in the UK; specifically, it referenced an online meme known as “Nick, 30 ans” which depicts a disaffected young man whose prospects have become restricted thanks in large part due to multiculturalism, globalisation and other such pernicious forces.
Curiously, no attention was paid whatsoever as to where this meme might have come from, which was a shame, given its origins can be traced back to a far right French account on Twitter, which posted it as part of its ongoing campaign against non-white immigration. It’s possible to trace the meme’s evolution through right wing Twitter, its translation into English and its filtering into mainstream media in the UK via the Spectator and GB News, before its unremarked appearance on the BBC several years later.
It’s not just Nic. Listen to any radio phone-in on immigration, watch any GB News bulletin and you will hear immigrants to the UK being referred to as “men of fighting age”. Where does this terminology come from? It bubbled up on X in the wake of the start of the conflict in Ukraine and exploded as the issue of small-boat crossings grew post-Brexit, fuelled by Tommy Robinson and others on X hammering home the messaging. It is now a mainstay of the increasingly extreme rhetoric on migration being peddled by Rupert Lowe and others.
Boriswave, adopted by the media late last year as shorthand for the rise in small-boat crossings in the wake of Johnson’s Brexit deal, is another term whose origins can be found in avowedly racist posts on X and which was folded into the mainstream with nary a thought.
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Why does this happen? In part, it’s simply smart comms by the racists. X has been the social media platform of choice for the media and political classes for nearly 15 years and they’ve struggled to wean themselves off it, despite its functionality (and fun) falling off a cliff since the Musk takeover. If something gets enough traction on X, it’s entirely possible it will come to the attention of a terminally online MP who will see it as an opportunity to piggyback a popular issue.
In part, though, it’s a conscious design decision. It’s long been known that social media rewards posts which inflame and arouse debate, but since the Muskian rebrand, X is also specifically working to reward right wing talking points with increased reach. Navigate to the app’s algorithmic “For You” feed and you’re guaranteed to be fed content from Musk, often promoting the sort of, ahem, “fringe” beliefs that would have got you kicked out of polite society a decade ago.
Analysis from Sky News last year demonstrated that new accounts on X were served nearly twice as much “right wing” political content as that from other viewpoints – and “right wing” on X is considerably further right than it used to be. The past three years has seen the reinstatement of hundreds of accounts that were previously banned from the platform for hate speech or for posting related content. Now they are free to once again post about The Great Replacement Theory, another of Musk’s new obsessions.
Add to this the monetisation of posting through X’s “creator revenue sharing” schemes – which has seen Farage, Anderson and Lowe earn thousands for posting about the decline of the UK into a racially divided hellhole – and it’s not hard to see how the old adage that “Twitter isn’t real life” doesn’t quite apply any more.
In a recent essay, writer Aidan Walker coined the concept of “platform terroir” – the conditions a particular online platform maintains which in turn determine and define the nature of interactions on said platform. The terroir of X feels like it has been terminally polluted – wilfully so – by its owner, to the point where it’s only capable of producing wine that tastes like piss and makes you sick. It feels like it’s time for us to switch to a different, better vineyard – or maybe get off the sauce altogether.
Matt Muir is a tech journalist. His newsletter is at webcurios.co.uk
