A man in profile, wearing headphones and looking at a mobile phone screen. Photo: By I’M ZION on Unsplash.
Off-platform: Tim Gee on the need for a Quaker testimony on social media
‘The line is where the bad seems to outweigh the good.’
In December last year, the Friends World Committee for Consultation disengaged from the social media platform X, previously known as Twitter. So did Quakers in Britain, Quakers in Ireland, Woodbrooke, and many others. We were united by concerns about the site, in particular since Elon Musk’s takeover.
The issues had been stacking up for some time. As far back as 2018, Amnesty International was calling on Twitter to address the problems of abuse on the site, including by investing in content moderation. I remember it well because I was Amnesty’s UK campaigns manager at the time. At that point it felt like there was potential for positive change. Now it’s clear things have gone in exactly the wrong direction.
Quakers are, of course, a peace church. The Quakers in Britain statement about disengaging from X referenced false narratives that have likely led to real-world violence. Reports about the spread of misinformation ahead of last year’s racist riots in Britain remain a serious cause for concern, and an immediate example.
Then there’s the overt closeness of the site’s owner to the incoming US administration, and the apparent assertiveness of said owner to push his views on everyone else. This is not a political point, rather it is part of trying to remain nonpartisan. If the owner can amend the controls to ensure his own voice is amplified, he is very capable of doing the same for other political actors who he agrees with.
Of course part of peacemaking is to engage with people we may disagree with, and some Friends have valiantly decided to stick with X on this basis. Our experience, though, is that the kinds of things we want to say aren’t reaching many people at all on the site, whether they agree with us or otherwise. Audience engagement specialist Ron Hogan, of Friends Journal (also part of the ‘Quaker eXodus’) put it succinctly: ‘We aren’t hiding our light under a bushel by leaving, the algorithm is throwing a bushel over our light as long as we remain.’
X represents an extreme case. When a platform has so obviously and overtly gone beyond the line, and we only have limited capacity to engage, investing the time and energy we have elsewhere is now the obvious course of action. It does prompt another obvious question though, which is, where is the line? In the case of this decision there is also an answer: the line is where the bad seems to outweigh the good. Are the alternatives better? For now they probably mostly are, but it still makes sense to be vigilant, and we can’t avoid the wider issues.
Should we use social media at all?
As ‘practical mystics’ (thank you Jennifer Kavanagh for the phrase), Quakers engage with the world rather than retreating to the monastery, and we navigate some difficult questions. On one hand, in Europe our worship is rooted in silence, and there’s a reverence for divine connection that can’t be expressed in words. A US journalist has even opined that Quakerism is the antidote to Twitter. On the other hand we want to get the word out that we are here and we’re welcoming, so people can find out more. One year more enquirers came to Quakers through a single YouTube video by Jessica Kellgren-Fozard than any other efforts.
As a global organisation, seeking to communicate globally, it makes sense that we should engage with global communications media. We also want to make the world more just and peaceful, which means talking with people where they are, which a lot of the time is on social media.
In pursuit of a better world
It was always an exaggeration to label the 2011 Arab Spring the ‘Twitter revolutions’, but it’s also true that social media can help connect people working for justice, and to counter the bottleneck on information otherwise held by newspapers and broadcasters. Let’s face it, the traditional media is hardly a bastion of truth. For a while it felt like social platforms were a place where mainstream media falsehoods could be corrected. But now it feels like that has been taken advantage of.
People or organisations, sometimes behind unaccountable avatars, can now easily spread conspiracy theories and disinformation. A world where there is significant doubt about trusting anything is ripe for the rise of untrustworthy leaders.
I’m not claiming a direct causation. What we can say, though, is that the hopes that I and others held a decade or so ago that social media would contribute to a more democratic world have not been borne out. According to the Varieties of Democracy Institute, ‘almost all components of democracy are getting worse in more countries than they are getting better, compared to ten years ago’.
Part of the problem is that it is all so new and has grown so fast. Twitter/X is only eighteen years old. In human years just about able to vote. In that time it has grown to 600 million users including many journalists, politicians and opinion formers. Facebook/Meta is two years older, and claims more than three billion users. More than four billion people in the world are users of social media. Good or bad, it is here, and here to stay.
A ‘global town square?’
Should we see social media as a kind of global ‘town square’, as Twitter/X would like us to? I may have fallen for that marketing myself. But no, it’s not. Might it better be seen as a form of media, like a newspaper or television channel. Maybe – although their owners don’t think so.
I think the most straightforward way is to understand each platform as a business, seeking profit. Or, failing that, serving the interests of their owners.
Businesses, of course, can bring social good. Many Friends were and are part of the fair trade movement, which has shone a light on the harm done by the dominant exploitative model of trade, and provided co-operative ethical alternatives. Right now the world is ripe for a form of fair-trade social media company, the smallest examples of which may well exist already, although to my knowledge none has emerged as a frontrunner. In the meantime we’ve joined BlueSky, which at least has the advantage of being decentralised.
In a very small way I’ve long dreamed of a ‘Quaker app’ where you can find an online Meeting happening somewhere in the world and join it straight away, or maybe chat with another Quaker in real time, even meet up in real life if you are nearby. I don’t suggest this as a replacement for social media. I mean to say that more and more of our lives will be spent online, and this will transform things in the coming years every bit as much (and probably more) than has been the case in the time since today’s social media giants were born.
Testimony on social media
In the meantime, we will keep feeling our way forward. Yes, we do need a testimony on social media, but our testimonies are not policy positions or manifestos, they are a cumulative body of action and reflection. The seeds of an approach are already there.
Advices & queries encourages us to ‘Consider which of the ways to happiness offered by society are truly fulfilling and which are potentially corrupting and destructive. Be discriminating when choosing means of entertainment and information.’ This was the quote we posted when we announced our decision to leave X.
With the decision of many Quakers and Quaker organisations first to engage with social media, then to adapt in the face of changes to one of the platforms, we could say that a nascent testimony of sorts is emerging. It is pointing towards the idea that social media can be used for good, but that it needs to be approached discerningly, without forming a dependency, always listening for the promptings of love and truth, and able to leave if a line is crossed.
We are led by the Spirit, as we always were and always will be.
Tim is the general secretary of Friends World Committee for Consultation.
Comments
When she was Peace Secretary, Mary Lou Leavitt described a testimony as ‘a consistently-lived witness’.
A testimony on social media now would be premature. There seems to be an enthusiasm amongst some Friends to ‘produce’ a testimony on whatever issue is in the headlines that we don’t like, last year’s BYM gathering included a discussion on a testimony on kindness!
Our discipline requires deliberation and consideration. I believe we should be looking at our established and confirmed testimonies for guidance on our response to social media.
By Ol Rappaport on 16th January 2025 - 9:32
X actively promotes conspiracy theories. It promotes the tweets of its owner, for political purposes, which are not true. It supports right-wing and far right causes, and is inimical to people like me, after the owner has proclaimed his animosity towards us. The grotesque and untruthful attacks the owner made on Keir Starmer make me want Quakers to have nothing to do with it, rather as we do not invest in oil companies.
I have been with Quakers online since Quaker-B in the early 2000s, linking Friends in the UK and US. My experience is that social media promotes controversy as a way of increasing engagement, but Quakers do not find this nourishing, so we might get feverish for a few days, then cease to engage. Reading Quakers in Britain announcements on X, I saw each answered with disinformation and contempt, perhaps by bots: AI slop increases on social media.
By Abigail Maxwell on 16th January 2025 - 9:56
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