Marina Kazakova
Wed, 17 Dec 2024 10:00
Closing Victim Support Europe’s X Account: A Strategic Decision for Our Mission
As a team, we have made the decision to close our X account on December 17th. This was not an easy choice, as digital platforms are key to amplifying our mission to support victims of crime and advocate for their rights across Europe. The decision to discontinue our use of the platform stems from several key challenges.
Firstly, changes to the platform’s algorithms and policies have significantly reduced our ability to engage meaningfully with our audience. Tweets containing links to external sites now perform poorly, as X’s new algorithm suppresses the reach of posts with referral links. This poses a challenge for us, as we often need to link to articles and campaigns on our website, where we can address complex issues in more detail. As a result, since 2022, our engagement on X has declined, while our campaigns have seen more success on LinkedIn.
Additionally, as an organisation committed to supporting victims, we prioritise creating safe and inclusive spaces. However, the rise of harmful content and inconsistent moderation practices on the platform have raised serious concerns about maintaining a supportive and secure environment for our followers.
Secondly, since verification has shifted from being a badge of authenticity to a paid feature, anyone willing to pay can now amplify their messages. This creates an uphill battle for NGOs to stand out amidst the noise and counter the spread of misinformation. Since 2019, we were fortunate to receive Twitter’s pro bono advertising credits for non-profits, enabling us to leverage the platform to amplify our messages. As part of Twitter’s Ads for Good program, we built a long-term partnership with their team, which helped us enhance our online communication and amplify specific campaigns.
Our first ‘Ads for Good’ campaign, launched in February 2020 for the ‘One Voice One Cause’ initiative, involved 15 EU NGOs and 23 national non-profits, with only a third of them on Twitter. This campaign reached over 100K people. Over the years, we ran several successful campaigns using Twitter’s non-profit grants. Our 2021 ‘You Won’t Believe, But It Exists’ campaign garnered nearly 2 million Tweet impressions, while the 2022 ‘Age of Resilience’ event campaign achieved 993K Tweet impressions and a 2.8% engagement rate.
Unfortunately, X has now discontinued the Ads for Good program and no longer supports civil society advocacy efforts.
Finally, to best serve victims and drive systemic change, we must allocate our resources wisely. Continuing to invest in a platform that no longer aligns with our objectives or delivers meaningful impact is no longer a sustainable option. We remain committed to engaging with our community through other channels, including our website, newsletters, and alternative social media platforms where we can ensure impactful, respectful, and inclusive dialogue.
We thank our followers on X for their support and invite you to continue following our work through our other communication channels. Together, we can keep amplifying the voices of victims and driving positive change.
We will be leaving a pinned tweet in place for the next three months explaining what we are doing and why and pointing people to where they will find our content; and then we will close the account altogether.
Thank you for your understanding.
Sincerely,
The Victim Support Europe Team
