Paris Lord
The Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) has left X (formerly Twitter) for other social media accounts, especially BlueSky and LinkedIn, and we urge other medical and health organisations and professionals to do the same.
The Association has long treated Twitter/X and our other social media accounts as broadcast media. We rarely engage in any conversations, except for example to correct a busted link, or reply to a question about a conference.
We’ve been feeding the site for the past 15 years and have 23,000 followers. We joined in July 2010, while our official Australia and New Zealand Journal of Public Health joined in June 2015. Some of our Special Interest Groups and state and territory Branches have been there more than a decade, too.
But in April 2025, we can no longer justify that. Nor can we accept the threat it poses to our staff who moderate it.
Abusive comments are, sadly now, expected online, with plenty of people behaving in ways they would not if they were on a public street.
But the actions of Twitter/X’s owner, Elon Musk, to remove most moderation protections, especially those which reduced harms directed toward numerous minority groups, are unconscionable.
As is the decision to reinstate formerly banned, pro-violence accounts. The owner has courted and created a much more hostile environment than before he bought it. Not to mention the owner’s Nazi salutes, and other uses of white supremacist symbolism.
Our colleagues and members see this when they use the platform, and it has the prospect of harming their mental health. All organisations have a duty of care to their staff, but public health organisations have an even stronger imperative to protect and embody health and wellbeing.
As an organisation that represents 2,000 public health professionals across the continent, we don’t want to operate an account on an anti-science platform. And we don’t want our members to be exposed to harmful content, either.
Our solution? Leaving the platform.
And we aren’t alone. Journalists and others in our sector have been removing themselves from the platform, and our followers have been steadily shrinking since October 2024 – a first since we started the account.
Data shows that millions of others are fleeing Musk’s ‘digital town square’. The site lost about 2.7 million active Apple and Android users in the US in the two months between October and December last year, with its rival social media platform BlueSky gaining nearly 2.5 million over the same period.
And it’s likely that this trend is continuing – although the owner won’t release transparent and clear data on Twitter/X’s user trends.
PHAA National Office team held a long discussion in mid-2024 about whether to continue using the platform, due to reasons including increased attacks on minority populations, and Twitter/X’s removal of moderation tools.
We resolved that we would give it six more months, assess what engagement we were getting, and the overall health of the platform.
At the same time, we’ve also made efforts to use other social media platforms. We are also on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, YouTube, Vimeo, Mastodon, and even an obscure platform called Counter Social.
Our intent with most of these was to secure our official presence so squatters could not. Now that’s our approach with Twitter/X – we’re off the platform but maintain our social media handle.
While we rarely post to Mastodon or Threads – both platforms were considered by many as the potential next big thing in social media – we will keep those accounts just in case the online environment changes again. And chances are, it will.
In March, we held a training webinar to try encouraging our members to consider using BlueSky to share their expertise and will continue to offer training and advice to members and allies.
Our policy on social media will evolve as social media platforms themselves change. But what we won’t adjust is our duty of care of staff and members.
Now nothing about Twitter/X is worth our time, and we hope members, and other public health professionals, will use alternative, safer platforms instead.
Paris Lord is PHAA’s Communications and Media Manager.
Follow the Association on BlueSky, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook.
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