After almost twenty years on the platform, EFF is logging off of X. This isn’t a decision we made lightly, but it might be overdue. The math hasn’t worked out for a while now.
The Numbers Aren’t Working Out
We posted to Twitter (now known as X) five to ten times a day in 2018. Those tweets garnered somewhere between 50 and 100 million impressions per month. By 2024, our 2,500 X posts generated around 2 million impressions each month. Last year, our 1,500 posts earned roughly 13 million impressions for the entire year. To put it bluntly, an X post today receives less than 3% of the views a single tweet delivered seven years ago.
We Expected More
When Elon Musk acquired Twitter in October 2022, EFF was clear about what needed fixing.
We called for:
- Transparent content moderation: Publicly shared policies, clear appeals processes, and renewed commitment to the Santa Clara Principles
- Real security improvements: Including genuine end-to-end encryption for direct messages
- Greater user control: Giving users and third-party developers the means to control the user experience through filters and interoperability.
Twitter was never a utopia. We’ve criticized the platform for about as long as it’s been around. Still, Twitter did deserve recognition from time to time for vociferously fighting for its users’ rights. That changed. Musk fired the entire human rights team and laid off staffers in countries where the company previously fought off censorship demands from repressive regimes. Many users left. Today we’re joining them.
“But You’re Still on Facebook and TikTok?”
Yes. And we understand why that looks contradictory. Let us explain.
EFF exists to protect people’s digital rights. Not just the people who already value our work, have opted out of surveillance, or have already migrated to the fediverse. The people who need us most are often the ones most embedded in the walled gardens of the mainstream platforms and subjected to their corporate surveillance.
Young people, people of color, queer folks, activists, and organizers use Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook every day. These platforms host mutual aid networks and serve as hubs for political organizing, cultural expression, and community care. Just deleting the apps isn’t always a realistic or accessible option, and neither is pushing every user to the fediverse when there are circumstances like:
- You own a small business that depends on Instagram for customers.
- Your abortion fund uses TikTok to spread crucial information.
- You’re isolated and rely on online spaces to connect with your community.
Our presence on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok is not an endorsement. We’ve spent years exposing how these platforms suppress marginalized voices, enable invasive behavioral advertising, and flag posts about abortion as dangerous. We’ve also taken action in court, in legislatures, and through direct engagement with their staff to push them to change poor policies and practices.
We stay because the people on those platforms deserve access to information, too. We stay because some of our most-read posts are the ones criticizing the very platform we’re posting on. We stay because the fewer steps between you and the resources you need to protect yourself, the better.
We’ll Keep Fighting. Just Not on X
When you go online, your rights should go with you. X is no longer where the fight is happening. The platform Musk took over was imperfect but impactful. What exists today is something else: diminished, and increasingly de minimis.
EFF takes on big fights, and we win. We do that by putting our time, skills, and our members’ support where they will effect the most change. Right now, that means Bluesky, Mastodon, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and eff.org. We hope you follow us there and keep supporting the work we do. Our work protecting digital rights is needed more than ever before, and we’re here to help you take back control.
