EFF Abandons X: Why Top Organizations Are Fleeing the Platform

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) officially announced its departure from X this Thursday, marking the end of a near 20-year presence on the platform. The digital rights nonprofit cited plummeting engagement and a drastic decline in the platform’s ability to drive traffic as the primary drivers for this exit, joining a growing list of high-profile entities abandoning the Elon Musk-owned network.

The Math No Longer Adds Up

In a blog post, EFF’s social media manager, Kenyatta Thomas, clarified that the decision was not made lightly. The organization provided staggering data to support its move: in 2018, EFF posts generated between 50 and 100 million impressions monthly. By 2024, that figure dropped to roughly 2 million per month, and in 2025, 1,500 posts earned only 13 million total impressions.

“To put it bluntly, an X post today receives less than 3% of the views a single tweet delivered seven years ago,” Thomas wrote.

A Platform in Flux

The EFF’s exit follows a week of intense scrutiny regarding X’s viability for publishers. A report from NiemanLab published Wednesday indicated that including external links in posts actively harms engagement. This sparked a public feud between X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, and data analyst Nate Silver over whether the platform still functions as a viable traffic driver.

Bier argued that publishers are “using X wrong” by treating it as a simple news feed, suggesting they should instead foster on-platform conversation. However, Silver countered that even with high-effort engagement, the conversion to off-site traffic remains negligible.

The Growing Exodus

The EFF joins a long line of organizations to ditch X, including major news outlets like NPR, PBS, The Guardian, and Le Monde, alongside various academics, celebs, and government bodies. While some left due to political labels or ideological disagreements, the common thread remains a frustration with the platform’s declining utility.

Silver’s analysis, published in a newsletter, highlights that X is now dominated by right-wing influencers, with high-engagement accounts often prioritizing conspiracy theories over traditional news sources. Elon Musk dismissed these findings, labeling Silver’s data as “bullshit.”

Ultimately, the struggle for traffic is becoming a critical issue for publishers as they face declining referrals from search engines and traditional social media. For the EFF, the conclusion is clear: “X is no longer where the fight is happening.”