Dear Secretary of State,
Your decision to leave X, and to take the Department for Culture, Media and Sport with you, deserves a serious response. You have stated that X now favours abuse and misinformation over meaningful debate, and that it is no longer healthy for democracy. Many people will recognise the concern. The platform has become harsher, less trustworthy, more polarised and more vulnerable to manipulation. It is perfectly reasonable for any individual politician to decide that they no longer wish to take part in that environment.
But your decision is not simply a personal media choice. You are the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. You are responsible for the department that oversees much of the UK’s media, communications, online safety, creative industries and civic information environment. When you and your department leave a major public communications platform, you are not merely protecting your own wellbeing. You are making a political statement about where government believes legitimate public conversation should now take place.
That political statement needs scrutiny.
The first problem is that this looks less like a serious act of communications policy, and more like a performative act of symbolic distancing. To put it plainly, it looks like virtue signalling. It signals that DCMS disapproves of X, but it does not explain how the department intends to improve the wider communications environment in which X operates. It signals moral disapproval, but it does not offer a credible programme for democratic renewal. It signals that one platform is uniquely contaminated, but it does not provide clear evidence that the other large platforms to which politicians and departments now migrate are meaningfully better.
That matters. If X is abusive, extractive, manipulative, algorithmically distorted and poorly governed, then the same questions must be asked of Meta, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn and the wider platform economy. Some platforms may be better moderated in certain respects. Some may be less visibly aggressive. Some may have a more acceptable public image. But DCMS has not, as far as I can see, published a clear comparative evidence base showing why one platform is now unacceptable for democratic engagement while the others remain acceptable channels for government communication.
This is not a minor point. Public bodies should not make communications decisions on the basis of platform fashion, ministerial discomfort, party optics or selective moral disgust. They should make them on the basis of evidence, accessibility, reach, accountability, public-interest value, inclusion and democratic responsibility.
You are not powerless in this matter. You are not a commentator standing outside the system. You are a Cabinet minister. You do not pass legislation alone, but you are in a position to develop, propose, sponsor and argue for legislation. You are in a position to press for stronger duties on platform transparency, algorithmic accountability, misinformation controls, democratic access, data protection, civic resilience and public-interest communications. The Online Safety Act already gives major platforms duties to protect users from illegal content and content harmful to children, with Ofcom actively enforcing parts of that regime. If the law is insufficient, then the proper response is not symbolic withdrawal. The proper response is to make the law better.
This is where the present decision feels especially weak. If X is a threat to democracy, why is DCMS leaving the field rather than setting out the terms on which democratic communication should be rebuilt? If social media platforms amplify abuse and misinformation, why is the department not publishing a cross-platform democratic communications review? If algorithmic systems distort public debate, why is DCMS not convening the people and organisations who have been warning about these issues for years? If the public square is broken, why is the department retreating to other privately owned platforms rather than helping to build a more accountable civic media ecology?
Many of us have spent years trying to engage DCMS, ministers, parliamentarians, regulators and policy officials in exactly this discussion. We have argued for a renewed media system that recognises community, civic, independent and foundational media as part of the democratic infrastructure of the United Kingdom. We have argued that media literacy is not simply a matter of teaching people how to consume information more cautiously, but must include the practical capacity to make, share, question, deliberate and participate through media. We have argued that communities need platforms they can trust because they are accountable to them, rooted in their experiences, and open to their participation.
That argument has repeatedly been marginalised.
Instead, policy attention has too often flowed back to incumbent and legacy providers. The BBC, large commercial media groups, national news brands, platform companies, creative industry bodies and established institutional actors are invited into the room. Community and civic media are too often asked to wait outside, or to contribute at the margins, or to be treated as a small-scale delivery mechanism for someone else’s strategy. The rhetoric is about plurality, local voice and democratic renewal. The practice is too often about stabilising existing hierarchies.
This has consequences. The UK does not suffer only from toxic online platforms. It also suffers from a weak civic media settlement. Many communities have little meaningful access to accountable local media. Many civic groups struggle to communicate without relying on the same global platforms that ministers now condemn. Community radio, local podcasting, civic newsletters, independent local journalism, participatory media projects, social-value communications and community-led digital forums are treated as peripheral, when they should be seen as part of the democratic foundation.
Leaving X does nothing to resolve this. It may even deepen the problem. If ministers retreat from difficult public platforms without putting anything stronger in their place, the result is not democratic renewal. It is managed withdrawal. It is the consolidation of political communication inside cleaner, safer, more carefully curated spaces, while citizens are left to navigate the broken platforms for themselves.
There is also a political question that should be asked directly. Is this decision symbolic positioning ahead of a change in the leadership of the Labour Party? Is this a ministerial act of communications policy, or is it a piece of values-signalling designed to locate you and your department on the right side of a future Labour realignment? Given the present leadership transition, it is reasonable to ask whether this is about governing the communications environment or about positioning within it.
The distinction matters. If this is a genuine policy move, then it should be followed by a serious programme of action. If it is primarily symbolic, then it should be acknowledged as such.
A serious programme would include a published evidence review comparing the democratic risks of major social platforms, including X, Meta, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn. It would include a clear statement of the principles that should govern the use of private platforms by public bodies. It would set out how citizens who do not use those platforms can still access government information and participate in public consultation. It would explain how the department will avoid simply shifting public communication from one unaccountable corporate environment to another.
More importantly, it would include a formal DCMS roundtable with community, civic, independent and foundational media providers, not as an afterthought, but as central contributors to the future of public-interest communication. That roundtable should include community radio, independent local news providers, civic media practitioners, social media researchers, digital inclusion organisations, media literacy advocates, community publishers, open web developers, cooperative media organisations and those who work directly with communities that are poorly served by mainstream and platform media.
The question should not be how government can perform disapproval of X. The question should be how we build a more plural, resilient, accountable and democratic communications system.
This cannot be solved by migrating from one billionaire-owned platform to another. It cannot be solved by moving ministerial statements to platforms that are simply less embarrassing to use. It cannot be solved by presenting withdrawal as courage. Courage would mean facing the structural problem. Courage would mean admitting that the platform economy has colonised public communication because successive governments have failed to invest in civic alternatives. Courage would mean recognising that democracy requires more than content moderation. It requires institutions, practices, skills, trusted relationships and accountable media spaces that are rooted in communities themselves.
Secretary of State, if you believe X is damaging democracy, then say clearly what democratic communications should replace it. If you believe abuse and misinformation are being amplified by platform design, then legislate and regulate accordingly. If you believe public debate is being degraded, then open the door to those who have been working for years to build better civic and community media foundations.
Do not simply leave X and call it a democratic act.
A democratic act would be to help build something better.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Rob Watson
Decentered Media