Teesside Crime Commissioner Halts Use of X, Warning Platform Is Failing Its Safeguarding Duties...
- teessidetoday
- Jan 18
- 3 min read
Teesside PCC Announces he's Withdrawn his use of the X Platform (Formally Twitter) Over Safeguarding and Abuse Concerns..
18th Jan 2026
The Office for the Police and Crime Commissioner for Teesside has this week confirmed that it's ceasing its use of the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, with immediate effect.
The decision was announced by the Labour Police and Crime Commissioner for Cleveland Matt Storey, claiming serious and ongoing concerns about the platform’s failure to prevent the spread of harmful and abusive content—particularly content affecting women, girls, and children.
In a statement, PCC Matt Storey said that remaining active on X would directly undermine his commitment to tackling violence against women and girls. He explained that the decision had been under consideration for some time but was accelerated by recent revelations involving X’s artificial intelligence systems.
The PCC stated that X’s AI chatbot, Grok, has reportedly been used to generate and distribute sexualised images of women and children without consent. He described this as a profound safeguarding failure and said that any platform allowing such activity is failing in its basic duty of care.
“Protecting women, girls and vulnerable members of our community are among my highest priorities,” the PCC said. “I cannot, and will not, remain on a platform that enables or tolerates such abuse.”
From now on, the Office for the Police & Crime Commissioner’s X account will remain inactive and will only be used in the event of a major incident requiring urgent public communication.
Why Are People Leaving X?
The Crime Commissioners decision is said to reflect a growing wider trend across the UK, with public bodies, journalists, charities, and even individual users increasingly abandoning the X platform.
Key reasons cited for the exodus include Failure to tackle abuse, Weak moderation of content deemed to be 'harmful', as well as Safeguarding concerns regarding the alleged spread of non-consensual sexual imagery, including its AI-generated material.
The UK Government has signaled that social media platforms could be set to face much stricter enforcement under the governments controversial Online Safety Act, which places legal duties on platforms such as X to protect users—especially children—from harmful and illegal content.
Under the Act, the UK Government and the regulator Ofcom have powers to:
Issue substantial fines to platforms that fail to remove illegal or harmful content.
Require stronger age-verification and safeguarding measures.
Restrict access to platforms that repeatedly breach the law.
X is said to be coming under particular pressure due to ongoing concerns about moderation, child safety, and compliance with the new UK online Safety Act that many say impacts on freedom of speech and expression. Ministers however have made clear that safeguarding obligations are not optional and that technology companies must meet the same standards expected of any organisation operating in the UK under the new Online Safety Act.
Mr Storey has claimed that withdrawing from the platform sends a clear message that safeguarding and public trust must come before maintaining a presence on popular social media sites.
However, many view the move as a reactionary gesture that seems to align neatly with a wider government effort to push X towards effective de-platforming in the UK, with critics arguing that this forms part of an increasingly aggressive drive by Labour government to exert control over social media under the banner of safety—an approach that risks blurring the lines between legitimate regulation and the erosion of free expression in a country that many fear is already venturing down a dangerous path of Authoritarianism.
