The Electronic Frontier Foundation Leaves X: Traffic Plummets and Three Requests Ignored by Elon Musk
The Electronic Frontier Foundation left X on April 9, 2026, after almost twenty years on the canary social platform. The decision, announced in a blog post signed by social media manager Kenyatta Thomas, was not entirely sudden and follows a prolonged and systematic decline in engagement.
The Numbers that Closed the Discussion
In 2018, EFF posted between five and ten tweets daily and gathered between 50 and 100 million monthly impressions. By 2024, with 2,500 posts over the year, EFF had about 2 million monthly impressions. In 2025, with 1,500 posts, the annual total was around 13 million: fewer views in twelve months than what a single tweet received in 2018. EFF summarized it with a formula that leaves little room for interpretation: a post on X today generates less than 3% of the views it received seven years ago.
After almost twenty years on the platform, EFF is logging off of X. This isn’t a decision we made lightly, but it might be overdue. 🧵(1/5)
— EFF (@EFF)
April 9, 2026
This is not an isolated case. According to the Social Media Benchmark 2026, the median engagement rate on X has dropped to 0.12%, the lowest among all major social platforms. TikTok, during the same period, recorded an engagement of 3.70%, while Instagram remains around 0.48%. In the early months of 2025, X had already lost 27.6% of its active users, with a haemorrhage of about 4.4 million accounts. The average usage time had decreased by 30%.
Three Requests, No Response
The numerical component is the most measurable, but there are other reasons that led the Electronic Frontier Foundation to distance itself from Twitter. When Elon Musk acquired Twitter in October 2022, EFF made three specific requests: transparent content moderation with clear public policies and appeal processes in line with the Santa Clara Principles; actual implementation of end-to-end encryption for direct messages; effective control tools for users and third-party developers, including interoperability. None of these requests were fulfilled.
Musk dismissed the entire team dedicated to human rights and reduced staffing at the locations where Twitter had historically resisted the censorial pressures of authoritarian governments. EFF has never viewed Twitter as a flawless platform, having criticized it since nearly the beginning, but it acknowledges a clear change in pace: the "old" Twitter defended its users, even in court. The current X does not.
The Facebook and TikTok Knot
The most delicate part of the statement concerns EFF's presence on platforms with a similarly problematic history. The organization is aware of the apparent contradiction: it abandons X invoking ethical standards, yet remains on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. The response is direct and articulated: EFF's mission is not just directed at those who have already adopted alternative tools or migrated to the fediverse. The most exposed people to digital rights violations are often those most integrated into mainstream platforms, and for these people, leaving is not a viable option.
The organization provides concrete examples: those running a small business relying on Instagram for customers, those coordinating abortion funds using TikTok to disseminate crucial information, people living in isolation who find in the network the only accessible form of community. Their presence on these platforms, EFF writes, is not an endorsement: it is a tool to bring information and resources to those who need them most, even while criticizing those very platforms from within. Some of the organization's most read posts, the statement notes, are those that criticize the platform on which they are published.
A Farewell in the Context of a Broader Exodus
EFF is not the first structured entity to take this step. The Guardian abandoned X in November 2024, followed by European institutions and historical memory organizations like the International Auschwitz Committee, which motivated its exit by the unchecked spread of antisemitism and misinformation on the platform. The peculiarity of the EFF case is that the organization is not leaving X for purely political or image reasons: it brings data, compares periods, and shows trends evolving over time. The decision is the result of a cost-benefit analysis applied to almost twenty years of history.
When you go online, your rights should go with you. X is no longer where the fight is happening. EFF takes on big fights, and we win by putting our time, skills, and members’ support where they will have the most impact. Right now, that means Bluesky, Mastodon, LinkedIn,
— EFF (@EFF)
April 9, 2026
The activities of EFF will shift to Bluesky, Mastodon, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube, in addition to the official website eff.org. The phrase with which the organization concludes the statement is both an observation and a positioning:
"X is no longer where the fight is happening."