Liverpool Mayor Says "Time Is Approaching" For Everyone To Consider Leaving X

Mayor of the Liverpool City Region Steve Rotheram has said “the time is approaching” for politicians and the public to consider whether they should “withdraw” from using Elon Musk’s X platform.

The scenes of far-right, racist violence across the UK have been linked with online disinformation being spread on social media platforms, including a false name connected with the suspect in the Southport stabbings of young girls.

X, formerly named Twitter, has been one of the sites where dis and misinformation have been particularly rife in the last few weeks, and the platform’s owner, Musk, has been openly using the site to spread conspiracy theories and criticise Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s handling of the riots and social media regulation. 

Rotheram, who has more than 75,000 followers on X, is the mayor for the region which covers Southport. He told PoliticsHome that while X had not “created” the riots across his region and the rest of the UK, it did have a “causational effect” on the violence.

“It's just vile. It [X] really is in the gutter and something needs to happen,” Rotheram said. 

“The time is approaching where we've got to all examine whether we should, en masse, withdraw from it and for there to be a different platform.”

However, he said he recognised it was a “difficult one” to navigate as a politician, as he also did not want to risk “leaving the landscape open” to the far-right. 

“There won't be people like us countering the stuff that they're saying,” he said.

“It could be sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy, that we end up with this a communication tool for the far right and Nazis and haters, and is that what we want? But something needs to happen, and if they [the social media companies] don't police it themselves,