A minister said she had restricted her use of social media platform X because it had become “a bit despotic” and had become “a place of misery”.
Jess Phillips, Minister for Protecting Women and Girls and Combating Violence Against Them, said that while she had previously been “massively addicted to Twitter” (referring to its former name X), she removed the app from her phone after Elon Musk took over the company in October 2022.
Her comments came in the wake of a row between Keir Starmer and Musk, with the social media tycoon branding the Prime Minister a “two-tier Keir” while posting a series of images, videos and memes relating to the recent unrest in the UK, suggesting that not all communities in the UK are “protected”.
He also branded the Labour leader a “hypocrite” over his handling of policing. The row erupted after the Prime Minister criticised social media companies for allowing the spread of misinformation that the Southport stabbing suspect was an asylum seeker, culminating in the riots led by far-right groups.
Downing Street had previously criticised Musk for tweeting that “civil war is inevitable” in Britain. Starmer’s official spokesman insisted that there was “no justification for such comments”.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Edinburgh Festival on Saturday, Phillips said of the social media platform: “Basically, I think I’m kind of done with it now. I don’t want to fish in that particular pond anymore.”
She told the audience: “I used to be massively addicted to Twitter, I have a very addictive personality, I was massively addicted to it.”
Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley added: “The only power we have now over something that becomes a little despotic is to stay away from it. In this case, we vote with our feet rather than with pen and paper.”
When asked by moderator Matthew Stadlen if she would encourage people to leave the site, she said that would be “too dramatic.”
But Phillips said: “Personally, I don’t think it’s a place to have fun anymore. I don’t think it’s a place of light, I think it’s just a place of misery now.”
She added that she doesn’t want to “bail out” and leave the site, but said, “I’m just not going to use it very often.”
Of Musk, Phillips told the audience, “As soon as he took over, I removed the app from my phone so I have to log into Twitter. So there’s already a barrier.”
The comments followed Phillips expressing concerns about the impact of social media companies in general.
The Labour MP said Musk had “every right” as a private citizen to express his views on British politics, but “as a businessman who can literally control how we see different things, we are entering more dangerous territory.”
