John Gruber posted his new column to Bluesky with this:
I’m sure this one won’t make anyone angry.
You have a blog! Just say the thing. Don’t pre-blame the people who are going to read it for how they react.
The thing is “X once again marks the spot”. It starts with John Ternus, who took over as Apple’s CEO last month and has been tweeting on X. Gruber points out that X is the only place those posts go. Then:
You may not like it that X has re-found its footing under Elon Musk’s ownership, but it has.
Same move as the Bluesky post. He’s already decided how you’re going to react.
He sees “more interesting posts on X than I do on Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon combined.” And:
The culture on X today is remarkably friendly and inclusive. It is a cheerful place.
His only problem with X now? “I do have to pay attention to avoid wasting time when I visit.”
I believe Gruber likes his feed. “Inclusive” is a much bigger claim.
I’m not expecting to change his mind. But people who were harassed off the site are reading this recommendation too. What is “give it another chance” supposed to mean to them? That the people who drove them out are still there, but the posts are better now?
In an update, Gruber points to Merriam-Webster retweeting “those notorious fascists at Sesame Street.” Nobody needs convincing that Sesame Street is nice. The people describing harassment are talking about what happens to them on the same site.
Your feed is not the site
I’ve been harassed off Twitter multiple times. That’s why I locked my account. I haven’t been on X since Musk bought it. I’ve also been swatted over a period of months.
His feed being fun doesn’t tell me what has changed for people who had to leave.
My friend Anil Dash has known John a long time. He thinks it’s myopia:
Knowing John for a long time, I think it's just myopia. (I say that as explanation, not excuse.) It's very hard for people who haven't seen it to imagine that their stream of Yankees scores and people fussing about iPhones is other people's death threats and nonstop hateful slurs.
— Anil Dash (@anildash.com) October 12, 2026
“Remarkably friendly and inclusive” is a claim about what other people experience there.
Mina Kimes covers sports, one of the things Gruber likes about X. (I also really liked her on Jeopardy.) She responded to his column with screenshots of her replies:
so cheerful and inclusive!!!
— Mina Kimes (@minakimes.bsky.social) October 11, 2026
[image or embed]
“DEI hire.” “Maybe try women’s tennis.” “You’re DEI. Shut up.”
Gruber gets to enjoy the sports posts. A woman making them gets told she shouldn’t be there.
Which politics count
Gruber says politics are unavoidable on Bluesky and Mastodon. He complains about people objecting to AI in his replies and calls many of the people criticizing his return to X “lost-their-minds types.”
Anil has a more concrete objection:
I just think it's dishonest to say that the politics are unavoidable on other platforms, but they are on X. Its *point* is its politics; you're just saying they exist at a level you find palatable. The guys who doxed my family aren't on the other platforms; they're followed by staff members on X.
— Anil Dash (@anildash.com) October 12, 2026
I don’t know what Gruber sees and ignores, or what never reaches his feed. I can read what people he knows are telling him. His column treats the objections as a reason to avoid other platforms without answering what those people are objecting to.
What happened on X this weekend
James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas, had been away from in-person campaigning. NBC reported that he and his campaign said he had the flu.
On Sunday, Nick Sortor posted a recording of a phone call and claimed an Ohio mental health facility had “CONFIRMED” Talarico had been discharged. Lead Stories documents the claim and the responses.
Musk joined in. Replying to another account spreading the allegation, he wrote: “The Talarico campaign is hiding something big that voters ought to know about”.
The facility, the Lindner Center of Hope, issued a statement: “Representative James Talarico has never received treatment from Lindner Center of Hope.” Talarico replied, “I’ve never even been to Ohio.” He’d already appeared at Austin City Limits on Friday.
Receiving mental health treatment would not be a scandal. Spreading an allegation about someone’s medical history and telling voters he’s hiding something is a choice the owner of X made that weekend.
The owner’s choices
Gruber says the “rank muskiness” of the site is gone. Musk’s response to the Talarico allegation is a current reason to question that. His decisions about who and what stays on the site matter too.
In 2023, Musk personally reinstated Dom Lucre’s account after it was suspended for posting child sexual abuse imagery. Musk said the posts would be deleted and the account restored.
This January, 35 state attorneys general demanded action from xAI over Grok’s generation of nonconsensual intimate images and child sexual abuse material. They said users had repeatedly prompted it to “undress” women and children. The UK’s Ofcom and the European Commission opened investigations into X’s compliance with online-safety obligations. Those investigations are not findings of liability.
When Minnesota banned AI nudification tools, xAI sued, arguing the law violated free-speech protections. A federal judge initially declined to block the law, citing the “undisputed harm stemming from AI-nudification technology.” On October 2, the Eighth Circuit put the law on hold pending appeal. xAI says its tool has safeguards against sexualized images of real people. It is also fighting this restriction on what the tool can produce.
Gruber doesn’t have to encounter any of this to enjoy X. But he’s recommending the site to people who do.
People get hurt from what happens on X. Gruber gets the Yankees scores.