St. John’s councillors formally voted yesterday to deactivate the city’s Twitter or X accounts.

Council served notice of the move last week, saying X no longer reflects the city’s core values of positivity and respect.

It follows a growing exodus from the social media platform by governments at various levels across Canada and around the world.

A review of all the city’s social media accounts found that Facebook and Instagram are most effective, while use of X continues to fall due to the vitriol.

Councillor Ophelia Ravencroft summed up the feelings of many regarding the platform.

“Twitter at this point has become the dispersive equivalent of a constant flow of raw sewage, and this is essentially at this point a harassment machine,” said Ravencroft. “And I feel that we as a city have an obligation to do better than continuing to engage in any kind of platform that promotes hateful ideology, transphobia, racism, fascism, many other varieties of bigotry, and is flatly an unsafe environment for everybody on it.”

“Don’t mince your words there, Councillor Ravencroft,” quipped Mayor Danny Breen in response, prompting a light moment of laughter in the council chamber.

The deactivation of the X accounts will take effect as of April 4.

The city is looking at the new Bluesky platform as an alternative, but also encouraging residents to sign up for email alerts on city issues and events.

?? The City of St. John’s is adjusting its social media presence. Effective April 4, we will deactivate this X account, along with the @whatshapstjohns and @StJohnsLIP X accounts. The @SJRFD_NL will also deactivate its X account.

We’re shifting our focus to platforms where we… pic.twitter.com/CvaR1SDgzw

— City of St. John’s (@CityofStJohns) March 25, 2025