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In a week during which Keir Starmer has been under pressure to resign, cabinet ministers took to X to show their support. “We’ve all been made to tweet,” one Labour figure told a political journalist. The irony is hard to escape: as the prime minister is embroiled in the scandal of Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and now his former aide’s links to a sex offender, MPs are defending him on a platform that has in the past month allowed users to create sexualised images of women and girls.
This says something about the unprecedented way in which X has been tied to modern politics since it was still known as Twitter, as well as how widespread the culture of indifference is to the violation of female bodies, both online and off. But it also points to a growing dilemma facing not just politicians, but all of us: is it possible to post ethically on social media any more? And when is it time to log off?
It seems as though every major social-media platform has been contaminated to some degree. Since Elon Musk bought X, on top of deepfakes of sexually explicit images, the site’s algorithm has ramped up its boosting of rightwing content, with Musk himself posting about how the white race was “rapidly dying” and other extreme views on race almost every day of January. Facebook, long accused of mass data collection and involvement in Russia-backed election interference, dumped fact-checkers weeks before Donald Trump’s second term. Instagram, also owned by Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, was found to knowingly be making teenage girls’ body images worse. And TikTok has been criticised for “exploiting” children, with under-13s exposed to self-harm content alongside dance crazes.
The Guardian’s revelation this week that Substack – the publishing forum some progressives fled to after other sites shifted rightwards – is making money from hosting Nazi newsletters sums up the no-win situation social-media users find themselves in. Substack, which has up to 50 million users worldwide, was found to be platforming writers espousing white supremacy, Holocaust denial and antisemitism, including an activist who described Adolf Hitler as “one of the greatest men of all time”. It’s all very 2026, isn’t it? Or 1936.
Still, none of this would be as disturbing if the disgust wasn’t accompanied by a pull to keep posting. There are very real reasons so many of us have failed to delete the apps, and not just because our dopamine-hungry brains have been trained to reach for our phones every five seconds. Over the past 15 years, for good or ill, social media has become a key way of connecting with others that – if we’re honest – many of us would struggle to fully break. That’s even more the case for marginalised groups, such as disabled people, who are more likely to rely on online networks for socialising and practical help. Just as it’s simpler to take the moral stand to cancel Prime if you can get to the shops with ease, it’s much easier to “get off socials” if you can walk up the stairs to your friend’s flat, feel safe in an LGBT+ bar or afford a round at the pub.
Social media can also be a literal lifeline for oppressed people, from Palestinians using Bluesky to crowdfund for food and medicine, to the lawyer of a protester in Iran notifying the world of their imprisonment. That is the absurdity of social media now: the same platforms that let some users scroll mindlessly to see what colour Stacey Solomon is painting her kitchen enable others to track and escape Israeli bombing. Often, we are in the surreal state of witnessing both through our screens at once.
There is a deep irony in the fact the platforms we seek escapism in are increasingly the most glaring demonstrations of the very darkness we wish to avoid. On the rare occasions I check my X account, I am usually greeted within seconds by (in no particular order): racism, pro-Trump posts, anti-benefit/eugenist rhetoric, Islamophobia, AI images and/or naked women. Perhaps as damaging as the content itself is the (quite false) feeling that this small corner of the internet is somehow representative of the country or humanity at large. There are few more successful ways for bad actors to keep resistance low than exhausting good people into thinking the battle is already lost.
There will be those in politics and public bodies who genuinely believe platforms such as X and Facebook help them reach the electorate, not least in an era when many older and disenfranchised people get their news – and plenty of fake news – from social media. There is certainly some truth in that. And yet the Mandelson and Downing Street aide scandals, much like the government using X to defend them, are a reminder of how the very worst behaviour quickly becomes normalised when it is, at minimum, being tacitly condoned by those in power. If Starmer wishes to show his government’s disdain for sexual abuse or the far right, logging off X would be a good start. Public opinion of politicians – and the current Labour party – is in the gutter. It seems unlikely that it will improve by them tweeting from it.
Personally, I’d just like to post a photo of my dog without coming into contact with a Nazi. I’m not sure that’s the snowflake demand Musk and co want us to think it is.
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Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist
