X: reputational poison, even if you try to reduce your use of it. Exit is the only option
A friend messaged me yesterday, asking if I had seen the job ad for Rector of the College of Europe (Mogherini has resigned as Rector since I last wrote about this topic). And my friend sent me the link to the job ad on X.
“What is the College of Europe even doing on X?” I wondered.
The top post shown on the official account is… from 2020, announcing Mogherini’s appointment!
I initially assumed someone at the College of Europe had forgotten to un-pin a tweet, but it is actually worse than that.
If you are logged into X you do not see this post at the top, but if you are not logged in you do (try in incognito window in a browser if you doubt me). This is because the posts for non-logged in users are algorithmically filtered, meaning they appear in a bizarre order. The 27 August 2020 post of Mogherini in my screenshot is shown first, this 26 May 2020 post shows second, and a 2023 post about the death of Jacques Delors is third.
One of the reasons Twitter used to work so well in the pre-Musk days was the use it could have even among those without usernames themselves – you could go to a person’s account, even as someone without an login yourself, and get utility from it. When police services, fire brigades and public transport authorities used X you could get updates reliably this way. No longer. And, importantly for the College of Europe and no doubt dozens of other organisations, X might well be serving up information at the top of the feed which is precisely not what you want to have there, and the account owner you cannot control this. The post in question is also more than five years old.
Compare that to how it works on Facebook (where even users without an account are presented a current overview – page is here) or LinkedIn (that won’t show you anything unless you have an account – page is here). Bland perhaps, but neither is a reputational risk.
So here we for the College of Europe – in the same situation as for European Commissioners: the only viable option is to leave X entirely.
The job ad for the new Rector demands the applicant “live up to the high ethical standards and values of the College of Europe“. If the College of Europe did have high ethical standards it would no doubt meanwhile leave a social network whose owner is demanding the EU be abolished.
[Update 16.12.2025, 17:00]
I was pointed to a similar case, although rather more annoying than damaging in reputation terms. West Midlands Railway uses X for service updates, but if you go to their X account without logging in your get a picture of a cat from 2021. Which is not quite what you want if you want to find out if your train is delayed!
Background: screenshots taken Monday 15 December 2025, late evening, confirmed using different browsers and IP addresses from different countries. I am employed by the College of Europe to teach a course entitled Online Communication in EU Policymaking.