Twitter changed my life for good. But the platform I loved no longer exists | Helene von Bismarck

It gave me friends, fun and new horizons - but the dark side of social media was a threat to democracy long before Elon Musk

Last year was the year when Twitter, now known as X, broke irreparably. In 2023 engagement fell off a cliff, advertisers withdrew and long-term influencers stopped - or greatly reduced - posting. What was a busy global public forum now resembles an aggressive wasteland filled with hate and rumour. On 18 December, the European Commission opened infringement proceedings against X for allegedly breaking EU law on disinformation. It is high time there was a broader discussion about the challenges social media poses to liberal democracy. But to do that, we need to understand why it can be so appealing. The battle for balance and truth may be lost on X, but it continues elsewhere.

I used Twitter very heavily for several years, and know that social media is not necessarily trivial. Long before I started to comment myself, I enjoyed it as a treasure trove of information. By following authors, experts, journalists, lawyers, politicians, officials and institutions around the world whose work was relevant to mine, or about whom I was simply curious, I could curate my own, transnational newspaper. As a researcher, Twitter saved me vast amounts of time, as long as I made sure to triple-check my sources and never rely solely on the information provided on the platform itself. As a writer it forced me to be concise and persuasive. When you have only 140, and later, 280 characters, every syllable counts.

Helene von Bismarck is a Hamburg-based historian specialising in UK-German relations