York’s Conservative councillors have criticised the decision taken today by the Labour Leader of City of York Council to stop using the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) routinely. Bizarrely they will continue to use it for ‘emergencies’, when any other organisation involved in emergencIes is keen to stress that X is not a suitable platform to use and this is only likely to lead to confusion.
Conservatives believe there is no way that anything other than a Labour administration which given the appalling performance of the government, is desperate to give its members some ‘wins’ against what they see as the ‘right wing’ would bring forward this change and that the council staff time on the report and the new policy is entirely party political, needlessly taking away a platform which many thousands of residents want to engage on.
As a result of the decision taken, City of York Council will discontinue all but some X use at emergency times. However Cllr Chris Steward believes the decision process and decision being taken are both inappropriate as:
- Putting a message on X costs nothing or next to nothing, it is content already prepared by the council’s communications department.
- The report refers to a minority of other authorities as supporting the move from X; virtually no councils are leaving X and the report therefore has to rely on examples as far away as Brighton.
- The report says there is sometimes inaccurate content on X, this is undoubtedly true but in no way different to Facebook or closer to home the likes of local media comments sections.
- The council claims it is leaving X partly due to X’s falling usage, yet says it will investigate the likes of Blue Sky – i.e. a move from a platform used by many thousands across York to one virtually unused. Indeed the report even says Blue Sky could ‘fill the gap left by X’, which clearly confirms X has a role.
- Given the impact on as many residents as there will be and that these are across all wards, governance experts have said the decision should be classed as Key when it is not being.
- The consultation has been totally lacking and virtually no-one will know about it ahead of it coming in, notably X itself has only seen coverage of how to watch the decision being made rather than explaining what is proposed.
Commenting, Group Leader Chris Steward said
As with many decisions of the Labour Group, the decision to stop using X is in no way a decision driven by the needs of York residents, it is being done simply because X is owned by Elon Musk and Labour councillors do not like him. Opinion may divide on the owner of X, like most people, but it is absurd to not use the hugely popular X platform, which is the most accessible platform of all and used by many thousands of residents.
