Why Haven't We Left X (Yet)?

We cannot give up the ground to the owners of the algorithms. If the people are on social media, we must go there to speak to them.

Today they asked me again. At other times, they almost demand it:

Why haven’t we left X?

The answer is not simple. Nor it is definitive.

Certainly, X has become a breeding ground for hatred, fake news and harassment of the scientific community. It would make sense for an institution dedicated precisely to science to decide to abandon it. But why settle for that?

Is it that X is dirty but Facebook and Instagram are clean? Have we forgotten that both have been embroiled in one scandal after another since the beginning of their days? Is Mark Zuckerberg better than Elon Musk? Why do we continue to use WhatsApp every day if it is also owned by Meta? And what is the benefit for Meta of owning WhatsApp, for which they paid an astronomical amount, if they don't charge us for it or serve us advertising?

If we really want to be consistent, we should also abandon all Meta applications. But wait a minute: What about Google and YouTube? Do we know what they do with our data? What about TikTok, which has a different algorithm for China, and about which both the European Union and the United States have expressed concern? What about LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft? Are we really going to stick with that one?

Social networks damage physical and mental health

Another issue to consider is the consequences that the massive use of social networks is having on society and on health in particular. There is increasing evidence of the damage that social networks cause to people's health and especially to the mental health of young people.

This being the case, the painful question is: how is it possible that an institution that aspires to improve global health uses tools that make it worse? The answer to this is neither simple nor definitive.

Is Bluesky the alternative to X?

Following the election result in the United States and its far-reaching consequences, the response of many institutions and individuals in the scientific community has been to abandon social network X. As happened in its day with Mastodon, another option that was celebrated as an alternative, many have switched to Bluesky, which recaptures the spirit of the original Twitter and claims to play fair. In fact, ISGlobal is also present on Bluesky.

Although this gesture does not solve anything, it is just that, a gesture. And a gesture can be better than doing nothing.

The truth is that those of us who have joined Bluesky have found a less harmful and also quieter environment. There is no hatred, but there are no people either. It is true that there are scientists and there are institutions; only the essential is missing: what we call the ‘general population’ in project proposals.

What is the point of communication?

At this point, it is worth remembering that ‘to communicate’ is a transitive verb. Something is communicated to someone. Maybe at Bluesky they are quite comfortable and can publish about science without receiving insults and threats. What does not make sense, seeing what is happening out there, is that the scientific community takes refuge in an ivory tower to watch over knowledge and morals. We will have to go where the people are, as long as what we want is to address them.

This, which is said so easily, is becoming increasingly complicated and forces us to incur contradictions. Social networks and algorithms have led us to a terrain that does not favour the communication of complexity, uncertainty or risk and where everything is black or white and there is no room for nuances. The medium, effectively, is the message. In these channels, disinformation travels in spaceships and science on horseback or donkey. The battle is unequal and for now there are no signs that we are winning it.

The solution is not in X or in Bluesky

In the face of all this, the solution cannot be to desert and leave the board in the hands of the owners of the algorithms. We have to stand up for ourselves on all fronts. If the population is confined to the networks and is consuming fewer and fewer media and websites, we will have to go there to talk to them. We will have to produce rigorous content in the hope that AI will use it in its responses.

However, the most important battle of all is not being fought at X or at Bluesky. It is being fought in homes and in schools. It is being fought in our pockets and in our children's bedrooms. In barely a decade, we have allowed technology to invade all these previously intimate spaces. We have given them free rein over our data and premium access to our brains and those of our children. Instead of training the AI, we have let the machines train us, manipulating the reward circuits of our brains, polarising us and getting us used to microtasks. It was there and not at X that we started to lose the war. And it is also there that we must start to win it.