ST. LOUIS — Mayor Tishaura O. Jones says she’s done with Twitter.
Jones, an avid user with 33,000 followers, hit a breaking point this week when the social media site’s new owner, Tesla CEO and social media provocateur Elon Musk, lampooned Twitter’s past support for 2014’s Ferguson protests.
“This is the final straw for me,” Jones wrote on Twitter on Thanksgiving Day. “I’m out.”
Jones joins a wave of criticism that’s been building at Twitter ever since Musk took over late last month and began loosening controls on harassment, impersonation and hate speech. Many prominent users, including politicians, have railed against plans to charge money for identity verification and to reinstate previously banned accounts. But Jones is the most prominent local figure to call it quits.
Jones has been active on Twitter for more than a decade. She has used it to rally her campaigns, endorse her friends and tell funny parenting stories.
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She has also used the platform to go after political adversaries.
She spent months going back and forth over public health orders and police funding with Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt. She even gave him a hashtag, #SueBully, for his lawsuits against the city and others.
Once, when he demanded an end to coronavirus masking orders, Jones, a Democrat, told her followers that he was “literally trying to kill us.”
When he responded by criticizing her handling of violent crime in the city, she replied that Republicans’ moves to loosen gun restrictions were to blame. “The blood is on your hands, Boo,” she wrote.
The critics don’t have to be heavy hitters to get a response. Once, when an account with 100 followers criticized her handling of crime in the city, she wrote, “My my my. Don’t we have little happy Twitter fingers?”
But Musk’s tweets this week may have sent her packing.
Musk, who bought Twitter late last month for $44 billion, said on the site that he found a stash of #StayWoke T-shirts in a company closet. He then lampooned Twitter’s past support for the protests in Ferguson, which followed the fatal shooting of an unarmed Black teenager by a white police officer.
At one point, he highlighted a 2015 U.S. Department of Justice report that said the teenager, Michael Brown, did not have his hands up in surrender when he was killed, contrary to a popular rallying cry among protestors, including Jones.
“’Hands up don’t shoot’ was made up,” Musk wrote. “The whole thing was fiction.”
Musk noted the report also said the police officer, Darren Wilson, shot Brown in self-defense and shouldn’t be prosecuted. He did not mention a separate DOJ report released at the same time that rebuked the Ferguson police department for regularly violating constitutional rights through unlawful stops, arrests, and excessive force, which disproportionally affected Black people.
Musk appeared to have deleted his tweet by Friday. But it was too late for Jones.
“Follow me on Instagram,” she wrote in what may be the final tweet from her personal account. “Y’all can have this bird app.”
Still, it’s not clear if Jones will make a clean break: Her official mayoral account posted a photo of her at the Thanksgiving parade later on Thursday. That account will remain active, a spokesman said. Jones did not respond to a request for further comment.
It also wasn’t clear how many others would follow Jones’ lead.
Aldermanic President Megan Green, a Jones ally, said she’s staying on for the time being. It’s essential for communicating with constituents, she said.
The Ethical Society of Police, an organization that represents minority police officers, said Friday morning it was ditching Twitter in light of Musk’s comments on Ferguson, but reversed itself an hour later. “Our followers have reached out to us and convinced us to stand and fight,” the society said.
Richard Callow, who has run communications for multiple mayors and is a frequent Twitter user himself, said the site offers a lot to someone in politics: quick, direct access to a big audience with opportunities to be candid, show personality and engage with supporters.
But there are other options. Jones is also active on Facebook and already posts some of what she puts on Twitter there, said Callow, who has advised Jones’ campaigns in the past.
And it’s not clear how long Twitter will last. Amid advertiser boycotts as well as massive debt payments, Musk has raised the prospect of bankruptcy.
“The mayor has always been a leader on Twitter,” said Callow. “Now she’s a leader from Twitter. I would not be surprised if others depart.”
As for Callow: “I’m going nowhere.”
