In a way, social media has been a blessing for society. It allows people from different parts of the world to communicate with each other effortlessly and instantaneously. They have also made it possible for people to find like-minded individuals with shared interests and create fantastic communities. In the past few years, it has also become a primary source for news, especially with a decline in public trust in mainstream media. The problem with it is that, because social media platforms are owned by billionaires, usually the decisions of which topics to push or are either chosen by them or they manipulate algorithms into doing so. And Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has been the clearest example of dangers it brings.
After openly embracing Donald Trump for the 2024 presidential election, he has made platform-level changes to boost his own account, the accounts of American conservatives’ and the far-right, along with those who spread either disinformation or blatant sanctioned propaganda paid for by states. All of this whilst pretending he’s a “free speech absolutist” (which he is clearly not). Musk didn’t just make shifts across politics, but even forced another tech oligarch to rapidly make changes in moderation politics - specifically Mark Zuckerberg. Among just a few examples, he has introduced rules and changes that stifle pro-LGBTQ+ speech and does the opposite with anti-LGBTQ+ posts, and appointed Trump’s close friend, and UFC President, Dana White into the board of directors. Meanwhile, Tiktok (a platform that has been mastered by populists from left and right across Europe and contributes to the polarisation of a society) has also contributed to spreading disinformation and state propaganda, yet the solution isn’t doing a backdoor deal so that parent company with links to Chinese Communist Party will sell it to US billionaires so that they could make it “100% MAGA”.
The first wake-up call for the United Kingdom happened not even after a month since the Labour Party’s win in the 2024 General Election. After a heinous knife attack in Southport, almost immediately false news was spread on X by far-right nationalist Tommy Robinson and National Defence League, who said the attack was done by an “illegal Muslim immigrant” - and these lies were spread even further by Musk. Even when it turned out that this was false since, Musk doubled down on this spread of disinformation. In fact, Musk’s newly found love for Robinson and constant engagement with him has resulted in a massive boost to British far-right across X, according to a Sky News investigation, and essentially act as a radicalisation platform.
It is clear Musk has become a genuine threat to public order with a massive weapon in the form of a social media platform with hundreds of millions of users. Yet, even after all this, the Labour Government has been extremely passive with their response by containing itself on big platforms and offering lukewarm condemnation of Musk’s rhetoric. Whatever their reasons for this, the situation is getting more untenable. If it continues down this path, Musk’s attempts to sow further division will bear fruit.
If the status quo is so bleak, what can be done against it?
The answer is twofold.
First, we must fully or at least partially boycott those centralised platforms because lack of engagement and traffic on their platforms will hit them exactly where it hurts. For example, in Germany trade unions and universities have started the boycotts of X after Musk held a live talk with Alice Weidel, leader of far-right Alternative für Deutschland Party, and even Defence and Foreign Ministries of Germany have withdrawn. Pressure on advertisers to boycott X has resulted in shrinking ad sales revenue - even when some companies returned to X to advertise.
Secondly, we have to build social media platforms that are not owned by billionaires and can be resilient against the usurpation of power by a single entity, whoever it may be. American journalist Mike Masnick in his paper “Protocols, Not Platforms”, outlines the necessity to decentralise the modern-day Internet by building platforms around the internet protocols instead of making “walled gardens” that are currently centralised social media. And there are not just one, but two alternatives: Mastodon and Bluesky.
While these platforms have a different history, different features and there is a reasonable debate whether Bluesky is truly decentralised, both of them work similarly: a network of decentralised servers where users can interact with each other, and each server has its own server rules. They gained a surge in popularity as a result of dissatisfaction with big social media platforms, and not without reason. People want to have control over the feed they’re consuming in social media rather than being forced to consume what someone up above wants you to. Most importantly, there is a demand for this among the public: Ofcom reported the drop in UK citizens visiting X in 2024 by more than 4 million.
But so far, Labour has mostly kept its reliance on big platforms in spite of the support even within to leave X. While several high-profile politicians (e.g Sadiq Khan) have at least begun exploring alternatives to X or Facebook and actively post on them, the majority of Labour MPs and even local groups either stayed on big tech platforms, or created an account on Bluesky and then dropped it. While similar patterns can be observed among Liberal Democrats and Greens, on a grassroots level they are more proactive in comparison. Specifically, Lib Dems created their own Bluesky server to avoid any impersonation risks (that’s where Ed Davey’s account is), while some Green party CLPs and councillors are posting on Mastodon and Bluesky (ironically, Zack Polanski with his “eco-populist” messages heavily relies on social media algorithms owned by tech billionaires he despises). The best example is Scottish Greens which is the only UK political party that frequently posts in Mastodon along with other platforms.
On top of that, Labour goes in the opposite direction by strictly enforcing the flawed Online Safety Act (which they supported in opposition and even pledged to toughen up) which only strengthens centralised platforms, chokes out decentralised social media platforms & small forums, and acts unintentionally as a censor.
There are lessons to learn from Germany when it comes to decentralised platforms: for all the faults of Olaf Scholz’ 'traffic light coalition' government in Germany that led to its collapse, they recognised its importance and created a server in Mastodon to host its official accounts. Also, progressive parties in Germany - e.g selected local SPD parties and politicians, and more widespread among Greens and Die Linke - use Mastodon too along with other platforms.
Labour has to adapt them before it’s too late.
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Ilias is a digital privacy & tech policy activist born in Ukraine and resides in Manchester. Pirate with social democratic views, he campaigns for digital rights, copyright reform, open source, and using technology to make public services more accessible, and state to be more transparent. Beyond that, he works as an embedded engineer, occasionally writes for Ukrainian leftwing journal “Commons”, and campaigns for support of Ukrainian and Taiwanese resistance, as well as Hong Kongers and Uyghurs. You can find him on https://mstdn.social/@DM_Ronin
All blog posts represent the views of the author alone and not necessarily those of Mainstream.
