If there is one resolution the news media must make for 2025, it is to go cold turkey and withdraw from their self-destructive addiction to X.

Formerly known as Twitter, this social platform is used by just a quarter of Brits, but for too long has had a disproportionate influence on the news gathering process. Now, under the politically motivated leadership of Elon Musk, the company is trying to stifle the legacy media that fed and promoted it.

When Jack Dorsey founded Twitter in 2006, the platform was immediately enticing for journalists. They loved the immediacy and had their egos massaged by offers of Blue Tick verification and opportunities to grow their personal brands. Other media sectors moved to the location in lockstep, and Westminster in particular.

The platform was suitable for faster news production. Sources could be found using the direct messaging feature. As many publishers resorted to endless clickbait stories to drive digital traffic, Twitter became their content engine. A single celebrity tweet could trigger a flood of articles. Parts could arise from anonymous Twitter users’ reactions to a reality TV show or an incident at a football game.

Today, Musk is in charge of the platform and traditional news sources are disappearing from view due to changes in the algorithm. Some outlets including The Guardian and American public broadcaster NPR have left the site, as have thousands of individual journalists.

However, X still makes headlines. On Boxing Day, Nigel Farage used the network to release a video in which he claimed that reform had overtaken the Conservatives among party members. Musk, his political ally, spread the post to his 209 million followers and commented: “Change is coming.” Angry Tory leader Kemi Badenoch jumped on X to write a thread accusing Reform of manipulating the numbers have.

The dispute subsequently made its way onto Sky News and the front pages of the Financial Times, The i-PaperThe Daily Telegraph And The times. Yes, it was a good story. But the result was exactly what Farage and Musk had planned.

Since the world’s richest man bought Twitter in 2022 and renamed it “X,” he has turned it into his political megaphone. Musk is the most followed user on the site and his algorithm ensures that his posts regularly appear unsolicited at the top of feeds.

After Musk joined forces with the far-right AfD in Germany, he denounced regimes he disapproved of. He believes the UK is a “tyrannical police state” on the brink of “civil war”.

He uses X to undermine professional journalism. “Old media wants to destroy your right to free speech,” he tweeted. By this year, news sites saw a 27 percent drop in traffic referrals from X as the platform reduced its profile. Journalists who refused to pay had their verification revoked and general sales were given blue checkmarks. Musk frequently tweets to X users: “You are the media now.”

He complains that media commentators predicted Tesla and SpaceX would fail, but both enjoyed endless positive coverage. According to Kate Conger and Ryan Mac, authors of Character Limit: How Elon Musk Broke Twitter“Musk’s desire for narrative control” is what drives him.

He is nothing but a visionary. In 1998, when Google was just weeks old, he predicted that the Internet would be “the be-all and end-all of all media” and that everything from print to radio would be “integrated” into it. But you don’t have to be Nostradamus to realize that Musk is bad for news. American writer Oliver Darcy said last year that relations between newsrooms and this “hateful platform” would become “even more untenable” in 2024. He was right.

Despite Musk’s claims that he is building a “digital town square” for free speech, X often censors critical stories about his political friends. He suspended a journalist from X for a story about Trump’s Vice President JD Vance. He described NPR as “US state media” and equated it with the Kremlin propaganda station RT.

Competing social networks like Bluesky and Meta’s Threads have yet to generate a user scale that matches the energy of X. Many journalists are hesitant to leave Musk’s platform and give the stage to disinformation. But the news sector needs to break away from the habit of using one man’s political mouthpiece as a source for finding stories.

The fact is that X is stagnating in its public appeal. More people in the UK now get their news on Tik Tok and even more on WhatsApp and YouTube. Elon may be worth £365 billion, but that doesn’t give him the right to define the truth.