The District of North Vancouver (DNV) says goodbye to X, formerly known as Twitter.
The municipality’s corporate account was permanently closed on Wednesday, a victim of declining public participation and concerns expressed by locals about the social media platform, according to the district’s administrative director.
“Some people used the words ‘bigot’ and ‘homophobic,'” David Stuart said in describing complaints about X. “What came up was the question of why we would use this forum for a public institution, and is it appropriate?”
Stuart said the decision to leave X was made before the widely publicized gesture from billionaire owner of X, Elon Muskwhich some interpreted as a Nazi salute.
“I don’t want to judge Mr. Musk. But I am responsible for understanding what the opinions and interests of the community are. When they raise issues like the ones they have raised, I feel like I have an obligation to respond appropriately. in some appropriate way.” Stuart said.
Tech expert Graye Williams said it’s not surprising to see a city turn its back on X, given how decentralized the site has been.
“Did North Van lose a valuable communications tool? They lost it when Elon bought Twitter,” Williams said. “Just because something was useful before doesn’t mean it will be useful in the future. North Van is also known to not be on Orkut or Myspace.”
CBC/Radio Canada polled three other metropolitan Vancouver cities on their use of X as a public communications tool.
X, formerly known as Twitter, experienced its largest user exodus since Elon Musk’s acquisition following the election of Donald Trump. The National asks two social media experts to analyze whether X is becoming a platform for the far right and what happens when people only interact online with people they agree with.
“With an audience of more than 269,000 people on X, we are currently exploring the operational impacts of deactivating the City of Vancouver’s from Vancouver.
City of New Westminster Communications Coordinator Melissa Nilan said New West anticipates there may be a need for changes in the near future, but nothing has been finalized.
Surrey is not contemplating any changes to the use of X at this time, according to a spokesperson.
“We remain committed to reviewing all factors, including concerns raised, as part of our ongoing evaluation process,” Amy Jugpal said.
Quitting X is a hot topic on online forums these days. On reddit, a campaign has emerged to remove TransLink from X and bring it to the alternative social media platform BlueSky.
“As most of us know, Translink loves to put any traffic problem on X… which most of us want to avoid,” it said.
On Tuesday, Metro Vancouver Transit Police jumped into the fray and received strong support after posting that they would use BlueSky more frequently in the future.
According to Stuart, BlueSky is an option that DNV is considering.
He said closing the DNV X account will have no impact on emergency communications in the district, which also uses Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube to reach the public.
The accounts of DNV Fire Rescue and DNV sports fields remain at X, he said.
Williams said public institutions and companies face the challenge of having to navigate the changing digital communication landscape.
“I look at the way we communicate on the Internet and the Internet itself, and I feel like it should be useful,” Williams said. “If it’s the information highway, then it’s the roads. So why are we putting the future of our communications in the hands of private corporations?”
