University Settlement is discontinuing usage of its Twitter account, effective immediately.

Over the last several weeks, we’ve carefully observed as Twitter’s new ownership has steered the platform in a new and troubling direction, including by reinstating users who had been suspended for inciting violence and for hate speech, and by suspending its policies against COVID-19 misinformation.

We don’t feel that Twitter is today a safe place for all of our neighbors to interact with University Settlement, and so we’re leaving, for now.

At its best, social media can still be a place where communities can form and important conversations can take place democratically; a place where powerful messages can transcend a person or organization’s background or status. Content moderation that ensures that all people are able to participate in social media conversations without being subject to harassment is a vital to the healthy functioning of our digital public square.

We’re deeply troubled that a public communications resource as central as as Twitter – one which many elected officials utilize as an official channel for communicating with constituents, to name one of its significant public values – could be privatized and effectively neutralized with so little regulatory oversight.

We invite our community to follow University Settlement’s official channels on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn.