Some Maritime municipalities disengaging from X while others still find it useful

A view of a lap top showing the Twitter signing in page displaying the new logo, in Belgrade, Serbia, Monday, July 24, 2023. (Darko Vojinovic)

Across two meetings about the Halifax Regional Municipality’s continued official use of X (formerly known as Twitter), councillors had some choice words about the social media platform.

“It’s less informative, less useful,” said Laura White.

“I don’t use X for reasons of the toxicity on the site,” said Becky Kent.

“X has become very politicized,” said Sam Austin.

Those reasons ultimately fueled councillors to vote 16-to-one in favour of phasing out X accounts officially used by the municipality by July. The municipality will be leaving behind accounts with a total of 243,545 followers and transitioning to Bluesky, a relatively new social media platform.

Other Maritime municipalities haven’t taken the step of disentangling themselves from X to that extent. Many still find it a useful way to speak with residents, while others have quietly reduced their presence on the app, citing problems with engagement and reach.

In its final post on X last February, the City of Saint John announced it would be concentrating its communication efforts on Facebook and Instagram, citing “low engagement and reach rates” on X.

James Ip, senior communications officer with the City of Charlottetown, said while they have an X account, they don’t use it regularly as a primary social media channel as they see better engagement on Facebook.

Jean-Sébastien Chiasson with the City of Bathurst said their X use is essentially non-existent as years ago they found the market share of the platform in northern New Brunswick was quite poor.

“Back in 2017, Twitter was looked at and even at the time, the market share (based on available data) was very poor for northern NB,” Chiasson said in an email. “Our mission is to inform and efficiently communicate with citizens and so the team at the time didn’t see it as an ideal platform and simply couldn’t justify the resources to activate and maintain a Twitter account.

“I personally looked into it again upon the start of my own employment here at the City, back in 2022, and the most recent analytics numbers I was seeing from different sources (including data I had analyzed previously when I was working as an account director for marketing campaigns in the New Brunswick market, agency-side) still pointed at a very low adoption rate for Twitter/X in the north of the province.”

Brett Caraway, an associate professor of media economics with University of Toronto, said X, which started as a micro-blogging site nearly 20 years ago, is now facing stiff competition for users’ attention from rival platforms like Threads and Bluesky.

“It’s not a platform that catches everybody,” he said. “They can’t lay claim to this market share anymore.”

Caraway noted the COVID-19 pandemic and Elon Musk’s purchase of X in 2022 were major events for the platform that created shockwaves which are still being felt to this day.

“At the height of COVID, there was a lot of pressure on Twitter and Facebook to label certain information or even take down information,” he said. “There was an effort to censor content on the platforms. Coming out of that crisis, I think the status of the platform has been diminished considerably.

“The user base has stayed fairly constant, but it’s hard to know about the level of engagement with the platform. Elon Musk is not helping with that now. He’s amplified some politically polarizing accounts. If you want to gauge the health of the platform, it’s useful to see what advertisers are doing and by all accounts they’re fleeing. They’re concerned their commercial messages are juxtaposed next to extremist content.”

Some Halifax councillors noted Musk’s close association with U.S. President Donald Trump as a reason for distancing the municipality from X, particularly amid Trump’s repeated calls for Canada to become the 51st state.

“X has become very politicized,” Coun. Sam Austin previously said. “The owner of X is part of a government that means us harm. This is not our only information source and it shouldn’t be.”

“Elon Musk has taken such a polarizing position in the public sphere,” Caraway said. “It doesn’t surprise me at all that government institutions are moving away from it.”

Aloma Jardine, interim director of communications with the City of Moncton, said they have noticed a dip in X’s overall popularity, but they still have a significant number of followers on their official accounts.

“We have been keeping a close eye on the situation for some time now,” Jardine said. “We mainly use that platform for PSAs, news releases, info about events, or in the event of an emergency.”

Shasta Stairs, manager of corporate communications with the City of Fredericton, said they have shifted their focus to alternative platforms, but they have no immediate plans to leave X.

“As part of our commitment to keeping residents informed and engaged, the City of Fredericton regularly reviews social media analytics to find the most effective ways to connect with our community,” Stairs said. “We have noticed a decline in engagement on our (X) account.”

Cory Thomas, communications coordinator with the City of Summerside, said residents are still interacting with their X account, particularly for alerts and notices.