Should your housing association leave X?

A small number of housing associations have made a point of leaving the social media giant X. Should you do the same? 

Several housing associations have either left or said they are going to leave the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) in recent weeks. 

GreenSquareAccord’s departure is arguably the most high-profile, with its LinkedIn post attracting more than 300 reactions and the move being picked up by Inside Housing. 

While the departures are so far few in number, could more housing associations decide to follow suit? Is it time for your organisation to part ways with the social media giant? 

Why are organisations leaving? 

Those housing associations who have publicly announced their departure from X share mutual reasons for doing so.

In an article published on its website in March, GreenSquareAccord said it had experienced a “significant drop” in engagement on the platform, a decline that was not seen on other social media websites. 

This was echoed by Manningham Housing Association (MHA), which said interactions with its customer base on the platform had been “minimal”. Having now left X, MHA said it had a “myriad” of other digital channels through which its customers could get in touch. 

What appears to be the primary reason for both GreenSquareAccord and MHA leaving, however, is the apparent increase in negative activity such as hate speech and misinformation.  

GreenSquareAccord, for example, said it has witnessed an increase in content “that we feel does not align with our culture, including hate speech”. 

MHA was more damning in its evaluation. Posting on LinkedIn, the housing association said “the general content” on X is “prejudicial, racist, and deeply unpleasant”, adding that “this doesn’t fit with the values of MHA”. 

In a short post on its website in February, Nottingham Community Housing Association – another ex-X user – also cited “racist and inappropriate content” as its primary reason for leaving the platform. 

Why now? 

Concerns from the likes of GreenSquareAccord and MHA around hate speech and inappropriate content on X aren’t unfounded. Nor have their departures from the platform come from nowhere. 

After mega-billionaire Elon Musk took over what was then Twitter at the end of 2022, he laid off a large proportion of the platform’s trust and safety team, which worked to keep hateful and dangerous content, as well as disinformation, off the platform. 

Musk then also offered amnesty to users who had previously been banned for violating the platform’s policies around hate speech and misinformation. 

X is currently in court against the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), an extremist research organisation that recently reported finding tweets “promoting and glorifying antisemitism, anti-Black racism, neo-Nazism, white supremacy and/or other racism” had been left up on the platform without any action taken to remove them.

Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, later rebranding it to 'X'. Cr: Frederick Legrand – COMEO/Shutterstock

X has accused CCDH of “actively working to assert false and misleading claims" about the firm, causing it to lose out on millions of dollars in revenue through its “scare campaign” to drive away advertisers. A judge has indicated the case may be thrown out. 

Elon Musk has claimed he’s a “free speech absolutist”. That’s despite banning a number of prominent journalists from the platform in January 2023, many of whom were critical of X and Musk. 

Indeed, given the continued negativity surrounding the platform, and the lack of engagement that those who have publicly left say they have experienced, it’s not hard to see why some in the sector feel now is the right time to leave. 

Should I stay or should I go? 

While some housing associations have publicly declared that they are leaving or have left X, the vast majority remain on the platform. Despite its flaws, it remains for many a useful way to communicate and connect with tenants and indeed the wider sector. 

Although many reports have shown a continued decline in users, X still says around 174 million people worldwide actively use its mobile app each day, with a total of around 550 million people using the platform each month (though some have disputed these figures). 

That said, there are a growing number of alternatives. There are other well-established social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook, which have all carved out their own niche in the market; but there are also newer offerings that directly challenge the ‘micro-blogging’ model that X (then Twitter) pioneered in 2006. 

Mastodon is one of the most high-profile examples, having experienced a huge surge in users when Musk bought Twitter toward the end of 2022. The open-source platform notably differentiates itself from X in the way it moderates content through its implementation of community-based moderation, in which each server can limit or filter out undesirable content.  

However, while the popularity of microblogging competitors such as Mastodon and Bluesky (a Twitter spinout experimenting with letting users pick their own content moderation) has grown in recent months, they fail to pull in anywhere near the kind of numbers as X. 

Even Threads is struggling to compete. Despite boasting an impressive 130 million active users, the Meta-owned platform is having trouble keeping users engaged, with the average user spending around three minutes on the platform compared with around 30 minutes on X. 

These figures may change, and X may find itself losing more ground to its nascent rivals. But as things stand, X remains – for better or worse – a channel through which housing associations can widen their reach and engage with customers. 

How to leave X 

If your organisation has decided to leave X, what’s the best way to do so? 

Writing on LinkedIn, Steve Hayes, director of corporate affairs and communications at GreenSquareAccord, explained how the housing association managed its departure from X. 

He said GreenSquareAccord ran an article on their website explaining that they would be closing their X channel in three weeks’ time. The article was then shared on GreenSquareAccord’s social media channels, including X. 

When Nottingham Community Housing Association (NCHA) announced it was leaving X, it said it would close its accounts on the platform “in the coming weeks”. 

If you are leaving X, it’s also important to remind your tenants and other stakeholders how they can interact with you, as NCHA did when it made its announcement. 

The CIH’s view

Commenting on the recent departure of some housing associations from X, CIH communications manager and external affairs lead Rachel Martin said: “It is great to see the sector actively evaluating their communication strategies and channels to ensure they are communicating effectively with residents.

"Engagement with CIH’s X channels have declined slightly over recent months (LinkedIn engagement has increased), but we are still finding it serves as valuable way to engage with our members, as well as others in the sector and beyond, so have no current plans to leave.”

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