Tag: abuse

Stop Using Grok and X Now!

Let’s be honest about what’s happening here. X hasn’t simply “changed”, it’s been deliberately reshaped into something harsher, noisier, and less trustworthy, and people are right to walk away. A public square that once aspired, however imperfectly, to host plural voices has become a platform where outrage is rewarded, nuance is buried, and misinformation travels faster than truth. That’s not accidental, it’s structural, and users are being asked to accept it as the new normal.

Trust has been hollowed out. Moderation has been weakened in the name of “free speech”, but what that has often meant in practice is freedom for the loudest, the most aggressive, and the most cynical. Good-faith conversation gets drowned. Marginalised voices retreat. Reasonable people self-censor or leave altogether. A space that silences people through hostility is not a free space, it’s a hostile one.

Then there’s the concentration of power. One individual now exerts extraordinary influence over rules, reach, and direction, with minimal transparency and no meaningful accountability. You don’t need a law to be broken to decide you want no part in that. Consumers are allowed to make moral choices. Withdrawing attention, data, and participation isn’t censorship, it’s conscience.

Grok sits uncomfortably inside all of this. It isn’t being received as a neutral, trustworthy tool, but as an extension of the platform’s brand and ideology. When the environment around a technology feels politicised, unstable, and ego-driven, trust in the technology collapses with it. That’s not irrational scepticism, it’s common sense.

People aren’t leaving because they’re fragile or offended. They’re leaving because they can see clearly what the platform has become, and they refuse to pretend otherwise. That’s not virtue signalling, it’s integrity.

Holy Innocents’ Day

Holy Innocents’ Day confronts us with one of the darkest moments in the Christmas story. Matthew tells of Herod, fearful and threatened, ordering the slaughter of Bethlehem’s children, a brutal act of power seeking to silence hope. Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, is an image that still aches with truth today. The birth of Christ is barely announced before violence erupts, reminding us that God’s love enters a world already wounded.

This day refuses to let faith drift into sentimentality. It insists we look honestly at the cost of injustice and the suffering of the vulnerable. The holy family themselves become refugees, fleeing by night into Egypt, carrying with them fear, uncertainty, and a fragile child who is nevertheless God-with-us. Jesus’ story begins not in safety, but in danger.

In our own time, the echoes are unmistakable. Children continue to suffer because of war, poverty, abuse, and neglect. From conflict zones where young lives are shattered, to quieter harms closer to home where children are unseen or unheard, the cry of the innocents has not faded. Holy Innocents’ Day calls us to resist becoming numb. It asks whether we are willing to notice, to grieve, and to act.

Yet this day is not only about sorrow. It also proclaims that God stands unequivocally with the vulnerable. The powers of violence do not get the final word. Even here, God’s purposes are quietly unfolding, carried forward by courage, compassion, and faithful care. Remembering the holy innocents invites us to align our lives with that divine tenderness, to protect, to speak out, and to nurture hope where it feels most fragile. In doing so, we honour those children, then and now, whose lives matter deeply to God.