It’s time Anthony Albanese got off X. Elon Musk’s social media platform formerly known as Twitter is repulsive
On this issue, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Sussan Ley agree: Elon Musk’s social media platform is disgusting. So why do they continue to use it?
On Saturday, they joined the international backlash against Grok, the disgusting chatbot that Musk launched on X, which some posters use to create sexually explicit images of public figures, people they hate, and even children.
Of course, Musk says the vehicle can’t be blamed for how people use it.
But let’s face it, the space formerly known as Twitter has now become a cesspool where people run loose with tribal aggression, pornographic content, and hate speech.
However, on the same day Albanese told reporters that
On January 4, X was the sole platform used by Albanese’s office to issue a statement calling for “a peaceful, democratic transition in Venezuela that reflects the will of the Venezuelan people.”
Ley was last on X on Thursday, attacking the Prime Minister for his long-standing resistance to the royal commission and regularly posting there condemning those who preach hatred.
Yes, I’m still on the site, and the mastheads I work with and many of my colleagues are also dutifully posting news links that Musk’s algorithms chew up and spit out, along with deepfakes and videos that you really, really wish you hadn’t seen.
Once the politicians we cover leave the site, I’m gone. Every week, I have to dive into that bilge to find updates I’d rather get from elsewhere: WhatsApp, Instagram, good old-fashioned emails.
Now would be a great time for the federal government and the opposition to reconsider the use of the platform they condemn.
Sharing on X is fast and simple. Governments and parties feel obliged to spread the message across as many channels as possible. But Australia has taken a much bigger step, banning any child under the age of 16 from logging into any social media platform.
Australia’s eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant was this week threatened with contempt of the US Congress if she did not testify before a House committee hearing designed to rebuke her for trying to stop X from showing a video of a stabbing motivated by religious hatred.
The Albanian government will soon announce the draft law prepared to combat hate speech following the Bondi murders. There’s nowhere I can use this poison faster than X.
Perhaps even last year, the benefits of sharing quickly in a space frequented by nearly 6 million Australians at least once a month outweighed any ugliness.
But now that it enables child abuse material, X does not deserve traffic driven by government warnings or political statements. As long as this is still the place to get ministry updates, the rest of us will be stuck with it and Musk continues to get away with his global bullshit project.
Twitter was once the best place for important updates about wildfires, power outages, train cancellations, and constant updates on big stories.
Six years ago this was the best source of news coming out of Mallacoota; It was broadcasting footage as the town was cut off by raging fires and people stood in the ocean watching the flames advance.
Now those real-time updates are on TikTok, and disaster alerts are more reliably available in emergency services apps, text updates, or by turning on the radio.
Many more people (50 per cent of Australians) are on Facebook; It’s not perfect, but it’s not X either. There are dozens of workarounds to get information to people, some of which don’t release updates surrounded by artificially enhanced misinformation.
When I first joined 17 years ago, people mocked Twitter as a place where people shared what they had for breakfast. That sounds incredibly healthy these days.
Like all online forums, Twitter has always had trolls. 15 years ago I was reporting on lives Destroyed due to insult allegations and unimaginable evil. But he didn’t dominate the broadcast like he does now. In 2026, trolls have crawled out from under the bridge and rule the place like orcs in Mordor.
If the government is serious about tackling the worst abuses of social media, it’s time to get out of X. It is no longer fit for purpose.
Michelle Griffin is a federal bureau chief Age And Sydney Morning Herald.
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