For Immediate Release: December 19, 2023
Contact: contact@theeducatorcollaborative.com
The Educator Collaborative Halts Twitter/X Presence In Solidarity with LGBTQ+ Organizations; Cites The Platform As No Longer Safe for the Education Community.
When TheEdCollab first joined Twitter in May 2014, it was an imperfect platform built on an inspiring promise: to support connection. While the platform was not free from harm, there were ongoing efforts at policy improvements. We, like many others, stayed with the platform because it was a place for meeting, collaboration, and discovery. Over the past decade, Twitter proved to be an unmatched tool for educators to engage in self-directed professional development and form connections with educators, authors, and researchers.
After Twitter/X leadership changed in 2022, the tone of the platform and its safety measures began to rapidly erode. Many educators, organizations, and institutions weighed the decision to stay with the community they valued or step away to find other platforms. Today, GLSEN issued a co-authored press release regarding their decision to exit Twitter/X. GLSEN Executive Director, Melanie Willingham-Jaggers stated: “Twitter has become an increasingly unsafe platform for LGBTQ+ people, especially youth. Twitter’s leadership team is enabling anti-LGBTQ, anti-trans, anti-Black and antisemitic tweets by removing parts of their hateful conduct policy.” The release further noted: “Research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), an organization that monitors online hate speech and misinformation, found that Twitter/X failed to take action against 86% of posts containing some form of hate speech.”
We have come to the conclusion, in solidarity with GLSEN and other organizations devoted to civil rights and human compassion, that an active presence on Twitter/X is no longer safe for the education community.
We are immediately reducing our presence on the platform. We will only adhere to the minimum requirements of the Twitter/X inactive account policy in order to protect our handle and content from bad actors. We invite you to find us at “TheEdCollab” on Instagram, Threads, and YouTube. You can subscribe to our blog at Community.TheEducatorCollaborative.com and visit our website TheEducatorCollaborative.com.
We urge Twitter/X to build on and improve the safety, security, and overall mission of their predecessors for all users.
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About The Educator Collaborative
The Educator Collaborative is an internationally recognized, research-based K-12 literacy think tank and professional development provider working to innovate the ways educators learn together. Our network of members make up our TheEdCollab Think Tank, our internal professional learning groups that study, research, share, and develop cutting edge literacy practices and mindsets together. It is this dedicated, collaborative learning that keeps us on the leading edge of global literacy practice and grounded in today’s education landscape.
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