Let's Consider the Self-Deleting Journalists Who Quit Elon Musk’s X

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It has been a case of high drama on Xitter this past week in the wake of the election results, with a wave of announced departures that would rival LAX on Thanksgiving weekend. The reasons, quite frankly, are not important. Most of these dramatic exits have come with the expected, lengthy swan song detailing all of the reasons they are heading for the exit.

I have not indulged in any of these. They are always rather similar in nature; their exit messages are delivered with some level of indignation, and enough contempt and condescension to shame a theater critic watching an off-Broadway stage effort. They appear to harbor hopes of inspiring a crowd to follow them to greener platforms, or at the least, generate pleas for them to reconsider. It is shameless digital peacocking.

The first indicator I saw was from The Atlantic, where staff writer Charlie Warzel delivered a lengthy screed about how Xitter is a white supremacist haven these days. Now, most of us using the platform know this to be rather hyperbolic, but the primary question becomes – if your site truly feels this way, why would you not only still operate there but promote your work on such a hellsite?!

This was hardly an isolated screeching in the wilderness. We soon had a collection of names joining in, from writers saying “I’m taking my Uni-ball and going home!” to outlets suspending their posting on the site. Jennifer Rubin locked up her account, and The Guardian declared it will no longer infect our timelines with its daft editorials; Don Lemon surprised many that he is still on the site that fired him, while Joy Reid has now become the latest to generate apathy with her departure.

But we know the actual reason, and it is that these journalists and outlets have been rendered useless due to the election result. They are facing obsolescence, and they cannot tolerate having their inability to sway the general public thrown in their faces, on the platform they lost control over when Elon Musk strode in. The last thing they want is to have to face reality on a daily basis, so they will take off to Threads, or BlueSky, or Mastodon – digital bubbles where they will be safe from criticism and coddled by like-minded, soft-souled journos.

This is done at their own demise. Threads – the META attempt to duplicate Xitter – made the declaration it was downplaying news cycles on its platform. Well now, that’s a swell landing spot for a journalist. BlueSky has been a mostly left wing echo chamber, where the primary discourse is about Trump and how bad Xitter has become. Mastodon is where the hyper-sensitives went to get away from Elon Musk – so they camp out and talk about how intolerable Elon Musk is among themselves.

But there is another reason why this petulant egress from Xitter is a misguided conniption fit. The site dwarfs their alternatives mightily. BlueSky has about 4 percent of the user traffic, and despite its connections to Meta’s Facebook, Threads is doing even worse:

Just to add to the amusement of the peacocking journalists who are quitting this site — their boasts of setting up at BlueSky or Threads means they are moving to a platform with a fraction of the traffic.
Soooo…good move, we guess? pic.twitter.com/bzj5xsRLtP

— Brad Slager: CNN+ Lifetime Subscriber (@MartiniShark) November 14, 2024

To see this kind of reaction to an election result from the allegedly unbiased news services reveals it all. For just over a week, we have seen journalists’ and outlets’ mewling that the public did not listen to their warnings on the dangers of Donald Trump, an admission they had chosen a side and were pimping for the Democrats and Kamala Harris. Now facing the results of their being ignored, they are handling this about as well as Tim Walz handling a video game controller.

Elon Musk has become the target on their 8×10 glossy dartboard since the election, as he is blamed for Trump’s landslide victory. Many are complaining about the level of influence this billionaire will now have, and how it is dangerous for him to give Trump a voice on his social platform. Of course, these were not concerns when the previous billionaire gave access to the Biden administration (as shown in the Twitter Files), nor were there outraged rants about another billionaire – Mark Zuckerberg – influencing the 2020 results with his funding of local officials, as well as smothering any discussion of the Hunter Biden laptop. Not all billionaires are demonized equally.

What none of these brave retreaters are willing to admit is that they are overwhelmed by Xitter. The platform has given more opportunity for free expression, and they hate that. It is a formidable competition. It derails their preferred narratives. And it exposes their lying and graft in the news environment. No longer are those cranks pointing out their tactics silenced, and this is not tolerable. Of course, it is all classified as misinformation, as well as dangerous; their own misinformation is perfectly acceptable.

What is most amusing is they feel as if this is going to somehow become injurious to those remaining. For years conservatives tried populating their own social media platforms, with middling success. Just as Parler was looking like it would serve that purpose, Amazon yanked the plug on that venture, stifling it and rendering it negligible to this day. Musk has done the magnanimous thing–flushed out that oppressive corporate hectoring and allowed more free rein on his site.

The people who promote limiting discourse and barricading free expression want to leave? I’d like to know what the downside to this can be. Basically, users wanted to be left alone and permitted to express themselves. If the nattering Karens opposed to the First Amendment want to truncate their voice on other sites, do not let me get in their way as they leave.

But I will need earplugs during their dramatic exit.