The engaging capacity of X, formerly known as Twitter, has come under scrutiny recently, particularly in light of a string of unfavourable publicity for the platform owned by Elon Musk. Over the weekend, a notable exchange occurred between X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, and prominent data analyst Nate Silver, which revolved around the platform’s diminishing ability to direct traffic to publishers. A report from NiemanLab soon followed, suggesting that including links in X posts may negatively affect engagement.
On Thursday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a significant player in digital rights advocacy, announced its departure from X after observing a steep decline in audience engagement with its posts. EFF’s social media manager, Kenyatta Thomas, stated that the decision to leave after nearly two decades wasn’t taken lightly, but the diminishing returns made it untenable. She highlighted that impressions on their posts had dropped dramatically from 50-100 million monthly in 2018 to just 2 million in 2024.
Thomas bluntly noted that a post on X now garners less than 3% of the traction it did seven years ago. Despite leaving X, EFF will continue to maintain a presence on other platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, underscoring that their appearance on any platform is not an implicit endorsement.
The fallout from X’s decline isn’t isolated to EFF; various other entities, including well-known news organisations like NPR, PBS, and The Guardian, have also exited, often in response to unsatisfactory experiences or a reaction to Musk’s contentious policies, such as labelling certain outlets as “state-affiliated media.”
Amid these discussions, concerns about how the platform has shifted surfaced. Many users now report that traffic to their sites has drastically decreased, coinciding with a broader trend of media struggling to keep pace with evolving consumer behaviours, particularly with the rise of AI technologies, which further erode traffic.
In the debate between Bier and Silver, Bier suggested that news outlets should encourage conversation rather than merely use X as a platform for posting links. However, Silver retorted that his attempts to foster engagement did not translate into significant traffic gain, with conversions hovering between 2-3% of readership compared to prior peaks of around 15%.
This shift in engagement has led to an environment where low-quality content and certain influencers dominate attention, as captured in Silver’s analyses. Unsurprisingly, Musk dismissed Silver’s data as inaccurate, which only adds to the mounting tensions surrounding X’s future.
NiemanLab’s analysis corroborates Silver’s claims, revealing that posts containing links tend to experience considerably lower engagement rates. The broader implication of these developments points toward a possible stagnation of the once-thriving platform, raising questions about the future dynamics of social media engagement and traffic for publishers.
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