MP Lisa Nandy has announced she is leaving X, formerly Twitter, and said her department will stop using the platform too.
In a statement posted before leaving, the Culture Secretary said: “I’ve decided to leave this platform and my Department will too. A platform originally designed for free speech and expression now favours abuse and misinformation over meaningful debate. It isn’t healthy for our democracy or our communities and I don’t want to support it.”
Her decision makes the Department for Culture, Media and Sport one of the most prominent parts of government to walk away from X. Nandy’s argument is that the platform has changed from a place of open expression into one that rewards hostility, falsehood and division.
That is a serious claim, especially coming from the minister whose department oversees media, culture and digital policy. Abuse is real. Threats are real. Organised harassment is real. No public figure should have to pretend that online life is always a healthy democratic forum.
Yet there is a danger in treating “misinformation” as a catch all label for speech that politicians, officials or institutions dislike. A free society depends on people being able to argue, challenge authority, make uncomfortable claims and hold unpopular views. Some of those claims will be wrong. Some will be badly expressed. Some will be offensive. That does not automatically make them abuse or misinformation.
Free Speech Means Disagreement
The point of free speech is not that every opinion is polite, correct or approved by institutions. It is that people are allowed to speak without the state, major platforms or political authorities deciding too easily which views deserve to be heard.
There is a clear line between disagreement and abuse. Threats, targeted harassment and direct incitement should not be treated as ordinary debate. False claims can also cause harm, especially during emergencies or when they are deliberately spread to mislead the public.
The problem comes when political disagreement is pushed into the same category. If a citizen challenges migration policy, climate policy, gender policy, foreign policy, policing, public health or the government’s record, that should not be dismissed as misinformation simply because ministers think the argument is wrong.
Democracy is meant to be uncomfortable. It depends on open argument, not managed consensus.
The Past Still Matters
Nandy’s decision also has to be seen against the history of Twitter before it became X. The old platform was not a neutral paradise of free expression. It had its own problems with moderation, political bias, government pressure and unclear decision making.
The Twitter Files and later political inquiries raised questions about the relationship between governments, public agencies and social media platforms. In the United States, disputes over government pressure on platforms became serious enough to reach the Supreme Court in Murthy v. Missouri. Although the Court rejected the case on standing grounds rather than ruling fully on the censorship question, the wider debate did not disappear.
In 2026, the US government settled a social media censorship case, with several agencies agreeing not to threaten penalties to pressure platforms into removing protected speech. That does not prove every allegation made about government censorship was true. It does show why people are right to be cautious when politicians talk about controlling “misinformation”.
Governments have an obvious interest in public order and public safety. They also have an obvious interest in protecting themselves from criticism. That is why the line between countering genuine harm and suppressing inconvenient speech must be guarded carefully.
Leaving X Is Different From Silencing X
Nandy has every right to leave X. No minister, department or public body is required to use a particular private platform. If the department believes its communications are better placed elsewhere, it can use other channels.
The issue is not whether Nandy personally logs off. The issue is the language used to justify it. When a senior minister says a major platform is unhealthy for democracy because it allows too much abuse and misinformation, the obvious next question is what government intends to do about platforms that refuse to moderate speech in the way ministers prefer.
That question matters because the same department sits close to national arguments over online safety, media regulation, public discourse and digital policy. If government departments withdraw from platforms they cannot control, the public should ask whether this is a communications choice or a political signal.
A democratic government should not need every major platform to be comfortable. It should be able to speak to the public even in hostile spaces.
Free Speech Matters
Free speech does not only exist for polite agreement. It exists for argument, criticism and opinions that powerful people may dislike. If politicians begin treating disagreement as misinformation and hostility as proof that a platform should be abandoned, Britain risks narrowing the public square rather than improving it.
Lisa Nandy is free to leave X. Her department is free to communicate elsewhere.
But democracy is not protected by walking away from difficult speech. It is protected by defending the difference between abuse, falsehood and legitimate disagreement, even when that disagreement is loud, ugly or politically inconvenient.
It is not for politicans to decide what is misinformation, doing so risks censorship, totalitarianism and impartiality. Instead, they should defend open debates, challenge false claims with evidence, and trust the public to judge competing views for themselves.
