A TOWN council in Cornwall has formally banned the use of X (formerly Twitter) by its councillors and staff.

Marazion Town Council thinks it is among the first of 213 councils in Cornwall to ban the use of Elon Musk’s social media platform as a tool to publicise what it is doing or to chat with residents. Penzance Town Council voted to withdraw from X last year.

As part of a full council meeting this week, a motion was passed on a majority decision by councillors to prohibit X from being used. It was felt that using the platform for anything the council wanted to promote went against both the local authority’s and the town’s “beliefs around tolerance, respect and inclusiveness”.

Part of the reasoning was cited as the platform’s Grok AI feature, which has been under fire worldwide for being used to ‘undress’ women and create and share ‘nude’ photos.

The motion was tabled by Cllr Richard Stokoe. He said he made the move “because X/Twitter continues to use sexploitation, and especially child sexual exploitation, through the manipulation of images to undress people to make money”.

He added: “This goes on top of the toxic cocktail of racism, sexism and unchecked lies being the main staple of that social media platform. Marazion and Marazion Town Council had no wish to be associated with such an awful online forum.”

Several local councils in the UK have decided to stop using or ban X/Twitter from their official communications, citing concerns over unfiltered and inappropriate content, misinformation and the rise of “toxic” abuse on the platform.

They include Devon County Council, Warwick District Council, Belfast City Council, Southampton City Council and a number of others.

Cllr Stokoe told us: “From what I can gather, we are the first out of the 213 councils in Cornwall to make a formal move to ban the local authority from using it corporately. X/Twitter just doesn’t feel like a place where responsible organisations should be touting their wares or aligning their values with.”