The Collapse of X as Public Utility

Interesting story on the decision of Fayette County Public Schools to abandon X:

Fayette County Public Schools officials announced Monday they will stop posting updates to X, formerly known as Twitter, on Sept. 27. The school district will continue to use Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. District spokesperson Dia Davidson-Smith said an audit of social media usage determined that X was no longer a platform that generated engagement. “In fact, X only commanded 2.4% of our audience as compared to Facebook at 46.7%, Instagram 32.2%, and LinkedIn 18.7%. That is why it was decided that we sunset X,” she said.

As those of us who have remained on twitter in some fashion have determined, a non-verified account essentially gets no purchase outside of a very small community of active followers. Even viral tweets (and they can really only become viral if they are picked up by blue checks) don’t tend to generate many new followers or much actual engagement. That said, the cost of sending a tweet alongside posts on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn is really, really, really low; with a built-in audience that becomes intensely interested at specific moments (possibility of a snow day, for example) it still seems worth keeping the lights on.

But then of course there’s the other part. The replies to FCPS tweet, as you might imagine, offer in and of themselves some good reason for abandoning X:

The Nazis are trying to swarm but don’t seem to have gotten much purchase yet. In any case, yet another example of how dreadful Elon’s actual management of the platform has been for those who want access to actual news.