Council to stop use of X platform

10 April 2025

The Council will no longer use X, formerly known as Twitter, as a channel for communicating information about its work and services. For us as a Council this is a decision driven by our values.

Over the last two years the X platform has become a difficult place for us to engage with residents.

Increasing levels of misinformation and the prominence the platform gives to extreme views make it hard for us to share information on our services and news about our work.

We have set out our ambition of making the Vale a County of Sanctuary. One that is not only welcoming but that actively challenges discrimination and negative perceptions.

With this in mind X no longer feels like a platform we should be using for people to engage with us.

This is also a decision about making the best use of our resources.

Recent changes to X have made it harder to engage with residents about our work. This is due to increasing numbers of inactive accounts, as well as changes to the algorithm which drives the content in users’ feeds.

Despite having 29,000 followers on the platform, many of these accounts are now inactive. As a result we have seen the levels of engagement with the content we share on the platform consistently decline. The number of impressions achieved via the platform is now less than 10% of those achieved two years ago.

We are already looking for new ways to engage with our residents and other stakeholders online. In November we launched our Instagram channel and we are constantly striving to give ourselves as many opportunities as possible to tell people about our work.