I left Twitter not long after it rebranded to X. At the time, I didn’t write about why — I simply walked away. But recent developments have prompted me to finally put my thoughts down.
Why I Left
My departure was driven primarily by the changes in approach to content moderation and the algorithmic amplification of negative voices. What had been a useful platform for professional discussion and sharing ideas became something I no longer wanted to participate in. The tone shifted; the discourse coarsened. I found myself spending more time frustrated than informed.
I’m not someone who leaves platforms lightly. I’d built genuine connections on Twitter over many years — conversations with other technologists, discussions about architecture and engineering leadership, the sharing of blog posts and ideas. Walking away from that wasn’t easy, but staying felt increasingly untenable.
It’s worth saying that one of my core interests then - information security - was a particular community to Twitter. New vulnerabilities and/or exploits would be discussed or even announced there first. It was pre-eminient. This is no longer really the case; the community has divided somewhat, and this is also a clear negative.
What Troubles Me Now
What particularly upsets me now is seeing what this platform has become. What was once a relatively open space for public discourse is now being used to train AI models and, more disturbingly, to generate indecent and abusive imagery. The platform that once connected people is now feeding systems that can cause real harm.
I had an interesting conversation with another CTO recently about Grok — X’s AI assistant. They noted it’s actually a surprisingly capable coding AI. That gave me pause. The technology itself isn’t inherently bad; in fact, it’s quite good. But I find it increasingly difficult to use, let alone recommend, anything that Musk is involved with. The values and direction of these ventures make professional endorsement feel like personal compromise.
The Complexity of Technology and Power
And yet, I have to acknowledge the complexity here. Starlink has provided genuine freedom and connectivity to people in Iran and Ukraine during their most difficult times. That’s not nothing — it’s potentially life-changing, even life-saving technology reaching people who desperately need it.
This tension is exactly the point, though. Technology is inherently political. The choices about how it’s developed, who controls it, how it’s deployed, and who benefits from it — these are not neutral technical decisions. They’re deeply human ones with profound consequences.
We can’t afford to be passive consumers of technology anymore. As technologists, as CTOs, as people who build and shape these systems, we have a responsibility to be interested — genuinely interested — in how technology is developed, how it’s used, and how it’s made available. The days of pretending technology is apolitical are long gone, if they ever existed at all.
Where to Find Me
I haven’t abandoned social media entirely:
- Mastodon: @alexhudson@c.im — This has become my primary social platform. The decentralised, open nature of the fediverse aligns much better with my values.
- LinkedIn: alexhudson — For professional connections. I don’t often post here, and find the quality of the discussion pretty poor in general, but eh. It is what it is.
- This blog: Where I’ll continue writing about technology, SaaS, AI, and engineering leadership.
If we were connected on Twitter and you’d like to stay in touch, please reach out. I’d be happy to reconnect on platforms that don’t leave me feeling compromised.
