Racism, misogyny, lies: how did X become so full of hatred? And is it ethical to keep using it?

We used to call it the place where you told the truth to strangers (Facebook was where you lied to your friends) It got more unpleasant after the blue-tick fiasco: identity verification became something you could buy.

In 2023 , the network now known as X began sharing ad revenues with its “premium” users.

Creating toxic content became a viable livelihood, which my 16-year-old , on football X, noticed way before I did.

Is X any worse than Facebook, or TikTok , or (for God’s sake!) YouTube ? And is it worse on purpose, which is to say, are we watching the unfolding of a Musk masterplan? Hope Not Hate separates far-right online activism into three strains: mainstream platforms X, Instagram, Facebook which struggle to snuff it out.

Co-opted platforms, such as Discord and Telegram , become favourite chat apps of the far right.

Governments look powerless in the face of these massive tech companies.

But where tech and politics aren't aligned, politics doesn’t tend to come out on top.

Brazilians , Twitterless , have been migrating to Bluesky , which was set up in 2019 by Jack Dorsey .

Bluesky serves a similar purpose to X but is designed completely differently.