I built my opinion journalism career on Twitter. What do I do with X?

More than most journalists, I owe a lot of my success to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

As a young adult, I had never really planned to get into journalism. It didn’t look like a very sensible career choice. (People still occasionally warn me that it isn’t.) Many newspapers have closed, while others have shrunk. Without Twitter, I probably would never be part of The Inquirer Editorial Board. The site served as my invitation to the global public square.

That’s why Elon Musk’s takeover — and the subsequent surge in bigoted content and deterioration in quality of digital life — has me so despondent. We’ve lost something that was unique and irreplaceable.

The largest, widest-ranging conversation platform in history is gone.

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In many ways, Twitter provided the natural successor for the internet’s original town square, the blogosphere.

Blogs could be written by anyone and often were done with light or nonexistent editing. In many ways, this leveled the playing field. If you were a strong, coherent thinker and could consistently put your ideas into readable copy, you could create an audience for yourself.

While journalists, college professors, and activists were all early adopters of the blog format, by the time Twitter arrived on the scene, the phenomenon was in full swing. Many Americans soured on the Iraq War while reading blog posts, while others became enthusiasts for previously fringe politicians like Ron Paul or Bernie Sanders. It is this legacy of open debate that Twitter inherited.

At first glance, Twitter did not seem well-suited to its role. The strict 140 initial character limit, lack of direct monetization for creators, and strong association with some of the world’s most vapid celebrities provided little hint of how the site would evolve.

For me, the change in direction happened mostly because of journalists, who proved to be increasingly enthusiastic users. Many newspapers encouraged staff to promote their work on Twitter, and once there, they found a newfound independence. They could be a little more unfiltered and show off their personal style. Unlike your print copy, no one edits your tweets.

Have a quote you couldn’t fit in a story? Put it on Twitter. A story idea wasn’t picked up? Put it on Twitter. A great turn of phrase didn’t make the cut? Put it on Twitter!

This allowed many journalists to create their own brands — identities that ensured they could continue working in journalism even if their institution got bought out and sold for scrap. It also allowed for some non-journalists, like me, to break into the industry. I built an audience for my work online. I may never have been taught about the inverted pyramid or how to pitch a story, but any insightful tweet that caught an editor’s eye served as a pitch.

Today, however, the pathway I took is gone. Insightful commentary is no longer the best way to get attention. Paying money is. Unless you already have a large audience, you can no longer build one for free.

Twitter has always had many copycats, folks who’d steal someone else’s great tweet rather than hitting the convenient retweet button. Today, thanks to Musk’s “X Premium” subscription service, any dupe poster willing to pay a fee would get preference over the originator, even if they have significantly fewer followers.

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That’s not the only way X’s monetization has hurt public discourse. Musk’s decision to give content creators who allow ads a share of revenue based on how many views they get has led to a proliferation of tweets meant to provoke angry responses. People have always written outrageously foolish things online. Musk will now pay you to do it.

None of that compares to the way content moderation has evaporated. The number of racist, homophobic, and antisemitic posts has exploded since Musk took over. While Twitter’s enforcement of its antidiscrimination policies was always deeply uneven, the website now encourages the posting of the vilest “content” possible.

The weekend of the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel brought a new low to the platform. Many X Premium users, seeking to capitalize on the pain and anger, posted unfiltered images and videos of war crimes, often without a content warning of any kind. Other “premium users” utilized images from past conflicts to stoke the flames and earn money.

Given all this, why do I still use and maintain an account on X? I ask myself the same question regularly. At this point, my usage comes down to two factors only: force of habit, and the difficulty of connecting elsewhere with the thousands of people who primarily communicate with me through it.

Every other part of Twitter’s legacy may be gone, but the magic of being able to converse with people around the world still draws millions to the platform.

At least until Elon Musk decides to start charging for that, too.