# X (formerly Twitter) 264 Hacker News commenters recommended X (formerly Twitter) and 984 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 13 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 13 years (13 owners). **Verdict:** Recommended for breaking news, official statements and niche industry or research topics, with a tunable feed; critics cite rage bait, political pushing by the owner and manipulation. ## Why people recommend it - Good for niche and industry topics (6 comments): "X is excellent for following niche research interests but they’ve been pushing quite hard to force political news/opinions into the feeds which is really annoying." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48445890)) "Algorithmic feed surfaces the good stuff, or at least popular, but lately it picks some very niche stuff successfully." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47111301)) "I hate what has been done to Twitter, but that's where so much of the useful information on using AI is being shared." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47510109)) - Fast breaking news, official statements (5 comments): "X remains the center of many circles, including tech. There is almost nothing posted on Hacker News that I haven't seen on X first, with better commentary." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49438305)) "X is decent for getting the latest news. The comment sections are often filled with garbage, even more so than Reddit." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49449267)) "X remains the platform where countries and many other official entities post official statements of policy first" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48197902)) - Feed can be tuned or follow-only (5 comments): "On twitter it highly depends on who you're following. If you specifically wanted to avoid political posts, it's not that hard to steer your algorithm that way." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46438762)) "as long as you nudge the For You tab by clicking show less of this a bit and following the odd thing you like it becomes quite useable" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49943050)) "Just use lists, "Your Followers" tab and never touch the "For You" tab and its basically the same as Twitter was 5 years ago." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46864349)) - Many useful new features (3 comments): "They've added all sorts of great stuff, and recently have been near the top of the charts in the Apple App Store." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47183973)) "The site's uptime is fine, and they've launched a ton of new features that were well received by the userbase." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47396641)) "X has added more useful functionality in the last year or two than twitter did in their entire existence" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47178044)) ## What people warn about - Owner pushes politics into feeds (4 comments): "Working as intended. It has been very clear for a very long time in Internet time that Mr Free Speech Absolutist Musk is only really interested in supporting far right propaganda." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47749410)) "X is excellent for following niche research interests but they’ve been pushing quite hard to force political news/opinions into the feeds which is really annoying." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48445890)) "the business owner is aggressively pushing his political views on users by heavy-handed methods like prioritizing his own posts in algorithmic feeds" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47707601)) - Rage bait and noise (4 comments): "the suggested tab is certainly full of crazy, unhinged conspiracy theories and obvious rage bait posts" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50051397)) "mostly full of straight-up noise and largely decoupled from reality, with the only reliable signal being a bias towards information that is personally flattering" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46204406)) "The system is so setup to reward rage-bait and slop that even if I try to curate my experience for it the meaningful individuals get drowned out." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46480254)) - Prone to manipulation, untrustworthy (3 comments): "They are both unprofitable and untrustworthy brands, a net-negative service provided to humanity as a mechanism for selling ads and manipulating public opinion" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49200743)) "I think it deliberately avoids censorship of any kind, which makes it both more open to truth (if anyone posts it there) and more susceptible to manipulation." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49199623)) "That does not describe any social media platform, they are not designed and optimized that way, that's the algorithmic manipulation coming through." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50049461)) - Feed controls don't work well (2 comments): "I have been disappointed that "Not interested" seems to have very little influence over anything on X" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49190494)) "The system is so setup to reward rage-bait and slop that even if I try to curate my experience for it the meaningful individuals get drowned out." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46480254)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Bluesky](https://hackerapproved.com/p/bluesky.md): 317 recommend - [Facebook](https://hackerapproved.com/p/facebook.md): 289 recommend - [Mastodon](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mastodon.md): 273 recommend - [Instagram](https://hackerapproved.com/p/instagram.md): 212 recommend - [TikTok](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tiktok.md): 130 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://x.com/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "X (formerly Twitter)", https://hackerapproved.com/p/x/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).