The best time to plant a tree, it’s said, was 20 years ago. The second-best time is right now. That also holds true for leaving Twitter (or X, as it’s currently known). In addition to the racism, sexism and overt white nationalism that permeate the platform, X is now helping users digitally undress strangers through the creation of non-consensual, highly-sexual AI images. What, exactly, are the elected officials and media members in this country who still use it on a regular basis waiting for? 

My colleague Jimmy Thomson laid out a number of reasons why government officials shouldn’t be active on Elon Musk’s social media hellscape, but I feel compelled to reiterate some of his points here. It isn’t the “town square” that Elon Musk has made it out to be — a virtuous digital forum for the free exchange of ideas — and hasn’t been for some time. Instead, it’s become the digital equivalent of Times Square in the 1970s and 1980s: a powerful magnet for vice, sin and abuse. 

Now, that includes using AI to nonconsensually remove people’s clothing and put them in sexualized positions. As any number of media outlets have documented, that has repeatedly included children and, inevitably, the Minneapolis woman shot by ICE last week, Renee Good. In response to the backlash, Musk’s company restricted access to image creation to its paying users, thereby putting it in the literal business of selling access to this stuff. If that isn’t the final straw, I don’t........

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