As many users and businesses have left X, either defecting to Bluesky or focusing on LinkedIn, it’s left the platform with a reputation for being dominated by right-leaning political views.
If that’s the case, you would expect to see highly polarised conversation around some of the Western world’s hot-button political topics. Think of topics like LGBTQ+ inclusivity, the climate crisis and ULEZ.
But, based on some analysis we carried out recently around the net zero debate on X recently, we found that platform polarisation is never quite that simple.
We based our research on comparing online reactions to two competing narratives.
First was a claim, widely reported in January by The Times and the Daily Mail, that the net zero transition would cost £4.5 trillion.
The other was recent Climate Change Committee analysis suggesting that a net zero economy would ultimately reduce energy bills and save the UK money over time.
The working assumption was simple: more negative framing would generate more online traction. Climate scepticism has been highly effective at spreading online, and because much of our analysis drew on X, with a smaller contribution from Bluesky and Reddit, the expectation was that the anti-net zero argument would travel further.
In fact, the opposite proved true. Conversation about the January coverage in the likes of the Mail, The Times and GB News generated just 560 posts and replies. By contrast, reaction to the Climate Change Committee story produced 4,874 posts and replies.
That gap did not reflect a sudden shift in political sentiment on X, nor a groundswell of pro-climate enthusiasm. Most of the posts in our data set came from replies to prominent politicians sharing the more positive Climate Change Committee story, especially Ed Miliband.
The responses were often hostile and deeply personal. But that’s what, sadly, every politician posting on social media – not just X – deals with day-in, day-out. More interesting is what the replies tell us about platform dynamics.
The anti-net zero argument, for all its alignment with an established online worldview, generated relatively limited discussion. The more positive story about net zero, by contrast, triggered a much larger response because it created a point of friction. It gave critics something to challenge, mock or dispute.
That matters because it reinforces a broader truth about X. The platform continues to reward confrontation. It is less a network built around constructive exchange and more one shaped by challenge, reaction and amplification through disagreement. What drives visibility is not necessarily endorsement or persuasion, but the ability to provoke a counter-response.
For comms teams, that creates an obvious temptation. If antagonism and rebuttal can increase reach, there may appear to be a strategic case for publishing messages designed to draw fire. There are brands and organisations that may be able to absorb that level of risk, particularly when they are highly confident in their positioning and clear on the audience they want to reach.
But this is rarely the most sensible route. Deliberately stoking anger is difficult to control, easy to misjudge and highly vulnerable to reputational blowback. In most cases, organisations are better served by treating X as an amplifier rather than as a primary destination for persuasion.
That points towards a more practical lesson from this analysis. If messages are likely to attract disproportionate attention when they are voiced by politicians, commentators or other prominent third parties, then communications teams should think carefully about who is carrying the argument into the platform. Third-party validators can generate visibility, create debate and extend reach in ways that brand-owned channels often cannot. Their involvement can also provide a degree of distance, allowing organisations to benefit from attention without being the sole focal point for hostility.
For many businesses, the most effective approach will remain a cautious one: reduce proactive posting on X, maintain a presence for monitoring and response, and focus efforts on identifying credible external voices who can help move a message further. That is a lower-risk and often more effective way to navigate a platform where amplification is still driven less by agreement than by argument.
X still has clout. But its value lies less in what organisations say directly, and more in how others with reach, relevance and credibility can carry a message into the conversation.
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