The time has come to do something about X - but it won't be easy.

Could 2026 be the year that the platform formerly known as Twitter is banned?

When I posted these above selfies of myself at the MTN Marathon in Uganda in November 2022 sporting a pair of bike pants in my favourite mint green on the platform then known as Twitter, I did not even think about what I was doing. After all, I’d posted dozens of similar photos in the past. There was nothing wrong with it. I was proud of myself for doing the race.

Later that morning, at a Kampala cafe, when I checked my account, it had blown up. That’s not a surprise in the country, where I was living at the time, with a large youth population and where citizens are social media savvy. In the end there were over 1k likes on that photos. There were a lot of positive and encouraging comments. But there was also dozens of sleazy replies, some calling me names. And worse one guy had actually taken my photo, zoomed in on my crotch, and then reposted it. Maybe I shouldn’t have been shocked. After all, this was the same place where I friend and I, running in front of the mall in 2017, had encountered a guy who’d yelled out “There’s a p*ssy.”

The incident in 2022, which I’ve mentioned on here before, was a few years pre-Grok, the AI tool on Elon Musk’s X, as it’s now known. The tech bro purchased Twitter in 2022. In the past week, Grok has been used to generate and edit hundreds of images portraying half-clad women and children, sparking an outcry all around the world. Some countries like Malaysia and Indonesia have even blocked Grok over this. On the weekend, the UK government said that X could be banned, although they appear to be backing away from this now however media watchdog Ofcom is due to report back after an investigation. We know from a string of complaints against GB News, that they’re a toothless tiger.

According to US analytics company Copyleaks, Grok produced about one non-consensual sexual image every minute in the two days leading up to December 31, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported.

European non-profit AI Forensics meanwhile separately discovered that more than half were of people in “minimal attire”. The bulk (81 per cent) were of women.

This episode in Uganda was only minor compared to what these women and children have now been through. They include having photos of themselves in lingerie or swimmers, or with parts of their body covered in semen, generated.

It didn’t involve AI. But still, I felt humiliated when this happened to me. More than that though I was outraged. This story in the news this week is a reminder of that experience and the fallout from it during a challenging time, and a clear signal to me that it’s finally time to sanction X and Musk.

I lost an entire week to reporting that photo, the creepy comments and getting them taken down by Twitter. Some of them, which included dirty remarks using local words, which would never be obvious to an X moderator, are still up despite me reporting them.

Around the same time another stranger, who appeared to be from Myanmar and who now lived in Melbourne and was a digital content creator, took another one of my photos, this time of me running up in Uganda’s east on a press trip with a coffee brand for work. He was now using my face as his in his Facebook profile.

After a connection on LinkedIn contacted me via that platform and told me that she’d seen it on Facebook and had thankfully reported it, I also reported it to Facebook. The irony, as I told her, was that Uganda, under dictator President Yoweri Museveni, banned Facebook in 2021 so I couldn’t even access it properly. I had to use a VPN. And I hadn’t done a Facebook update since 2018. I only used it for work.

But still WTF? Why was this person using my image as theirs? (Btw, when Uganda, which goes to the polls on Thursday, most likely shuts down the internet once again, expect the numpties on the far right to use this as a case study if/when X is banned in the UK and other democracies. Oh and as for LinkedIn, in 2026 I currently have concerns about it, after seeing posts by two women recently saying that they were stalked on that platform, a weird post about someone who had been approached about “renting” out their profile to a potential scammer, and having snoops look at my profile. But more on that later).

I had no luck with Facebook in November 2022, despite contacting them repeatedly to have this photo that someone else was using taken down. But after pleading with him personally, he finally did. Today, when I was writing this, I went back to find these LinkedIn messages and then went to this guy’s Facebook page, and that image is still up under his photos section. There’s no point in contacting him again about it. I had no idea why he wanted it in the first place.

The photo of mine that was taken.

Although it felt like a trivial thing and some might laugh it off, none of this was very funny to me. By the time I’d finished dealing with all of this, I was exhausted. I hadn’t slept. I hadn’t been able to work because I couldn’t concentrate, and I’m self-employed so that was challenging.

This is one of a few times I’ve faced a slew of online harassment and abuse from social media users, mostly in Uganda, where sexual harassment, online and physical, is rife. When I returned to the UK from that 2022/2023 trip about four months later I was, for instance, to spend an entire weekend being abused after reposting a story with a quote in it from an Ugandan which I didn’t even write myself. And I’ve been trolled for reporting on and speaking out about the country’s anti-gay law over the years, too. I love Uganda, it’s home, it always will be. But the culture of harassment is one of the things that made it so challenging to live there.

There’s a story here about what it’s like to be a woman in Uganda. I’m well aware that what I’ve experienced is nothing compared to what Ugandan women put up with every day, not to sound patronizing or like a “White saviour”. And that when I’m in the country, I have the privilege of leaving any time I need and want to. So while I knew some Ugandan female friends would relate and sympathize, and they did, I felt silly talking to them about it.

There’s also a tale woven in here about friendship, and it’s hard to write about this incident and another one and not even think about it, because I was in a weird and largely lonely and isolated spot during those six months in the country when I was working remotely as a journalist and part-time for a charity. I’d returned to a place where I’d once lived and loved, thinking that it would be the same as I left it. Although I have close Ugandan friends who I consider family, and who did look after me, including my beloved boda boda (motorbike taxi drivers), several of my “mzungu” (Western) friends had moved on in the physical sense. Others had moved on in terms of friendships and didn’t want to know me any more.

So I was dealing largely with this on my own. After I got my strength back from the social media harassment, I was then mugged one night, with my phone, all forms of my identification, credit cards and money taken, while coming home. It was only kind Ugandans - most of whom I didn’t even know, they really are the kindest people in the world, up there with Canadians - who reached out to me to see if I was okay, after, ironically I posted about the incident on Twitter. I was desperate to get my passports back though as going through the process of replacing them I knew wouldn’t be easy (it actually took me six months in the end) and I had a lot of interviews and other info saved on my phone. Again, I am aware that I am privileged and was able to get a new passport, and that I had travel insurance.

Not one single expat got in touch when I posted this on social media, despite me knowing that if the shoe were on the other foot I would have 110% reached out to them, in fact I had when they needed favors or when they asked in the past. The revelation of how toxic, sour, grumpy, unhappy, unkind and out of touch with reality a lot of the expat (migrant) community really was, which was now becoming clear to me, was confronting. Some of these people I’d had over to my house for parties, for instance. When I did tell my friend, the late Dr. Anne Merriman what happened, she invited me to her place for Christmas Day, so I wouldn’t be on my own. And her friends who owned a resort kindly gave me a free night’s accommodation there. But certainly people who I expected to at least say “are you okay?” even if they couldn’t do anything did not.

Maybe there’s also a story there about how much of ourselves we want to give, on social media platforms, and elsewhere. For instance, dealing with Ugandan bureaucracy and in a country that’s very corrupt - getting a police report etc not only cost money, it took up so much time. But I was forced to give this.

After asking a then good friend after I’d been robbed for them to turn up to a lunch, which I bought (well technically my mother, because all my money had been stolen) to sign some forms so I could get an emergency passport so that ’d be able to leave the country, they were reluctant to. I’d already just about fallen out with this person, because they hadn’t bothered to even see me even though I’d been back in Uganda for months, we’d arranged a lunch but on the day they’d forgotten, and then the day after I’d been mugged and had struggled with the paperwork for police forms etc, they’d told me not to “moan”. But it was very hard to get an emergency passport, as I could only get people from certain professions or Australians, being one.

One of the requirements was that the witness give the Australian high commission in Nairobi a digital copy of their own passport and they were worried about this. I’ve just been harassed and mugged, not to mention bought you lunch, I thought. Oh, and I’d do this for you. And have done things for you. I’d help a stranger in this situation. Until my dying days, even if I can forgive them, I’ll never forget that when I was traumatized, isolated and stranded, that this person treated me like this.

It was a crazy time and I’ll write more about this one day. I can laugh about some of it now and just writing this makes me miss the good friends in Uganda and makes me think of the good times that I had on that trip, including all the running that I did, because there were some also.

By the time I’d left in 2023, I’d made a bunch of new friends, mostly Ugandan, too, and a kind Australian, incidentally called Thor, who I hadn’t known that long, had come to my rescue with the passport forms. The saying about the kindness of strangers is really true.

It was like that social media harassment set off a chain of disastrous events. And this was in the days before Twitter completely went down the toilet. I haven’t actively posted on the platform for a year, after Trump was re-elected, although I will admit that I did go on it to lurk after the recent Bondi terrorist attack. It was the first place I went to look for information even though I knew there would be misinformation. Spoiler alert: there was.

This was only a few months after Musk informed the “Unite the Kingdom” far right rally in London:

“Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die, that’s the truth, I think.”

It’s as plain as day that that’s incitement of violence. It’s a wonder why he wasn’t sanctioned then, as UK Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey had called for. (Btw, I didn’t have developing a crush on him on my 2025 bingo card but when Ed Davey’s the only one standing up to Reform, this is what apparently happens. The Overton Window has shifted, but yes other things have changed, too).

After the sexual abuse content generated, it’s high time that something needs to be done about X - either Grok is banned, the entire platform is banned, or at the very least Musk is sanctioned.

For all its toxicity, X does still serve a purpose and there are some good things about it. Gauging opinion there cannot always be equated to taking the temperature on things in the offline world. But user Belinda Jones argued last week to a journalist that “Twitter has the most politically engaged community of all social media #auspol is the No. 1 hashtag in Australia, the only country on Twitter with its political community as the No.1 hashtag in the country”.

While the quality of reporting by our mainstream media (not all but most outlets) has declined considerably, there are still things that we only find out via X. It was only via the platform that I came to know that Rabbi Eli Schlanger, who died in the Bondi attack, and who the legacy media had said brought “light, joy & love”, supported the #GazaGenocide, raised funds for illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and advocated ethnic cleansing of “Arabs” from the West Bank. This has not been reported in the mainstream press.

Another user Cheryl Kernot told a reporter last week, “You’d be silly not to keep an eye on the knowledgeable contributors on here.”

Someone else on the platform pointed out that it had given women fighting for their rights a voice in the trans debate a voice. I am pro-trans rights, but think what she’s saying is interesting.

A lot of people have also built up what may be considered ““vanity metrics” in terms of followers, and still need to be on the platform for their livelihood.

In a recent post related to this subject about one’s number of LinkedIn followers, one user replied that:

Incredibly, those meaningless numbers act as ‘social proof’ for things like publishers, event planners, and even employers. They exist because even meaningless data still matters for marketing. Even if the content sucks. Even if the engagement sucks. The credibility arc between 10K and 100K followers on a given platform is mindblowing. People’s perception of you changes. Is it dumb? Of course it is. Yet here we are.

I have a lot of friends on X who I’ve met IRL and people I want to stay connected with, too.

And, I’ve heard people argue too that they shouldn’t have to leave the platform because of fascists, that they want to stay and make it better.

But it seems that we’ve now approached the point where the advantages of staying on X don’t outweigh the consequences, especially if it amounts to being complicit in digital violence against women, girls and children.

Studies conducted on the underreported phenomenon that is technology-facilitated gender-based violence by Dutch sexual health and reproductive rights NGO Rutgers - I worked with them on the PR launch of a report on this in 2024 - show that online violence often accumulates in physical violence. If we don’t act now on this, what happens next?

Having said all of this, realistically I can’t see that X is going to be banned, and today the BBC reported that the UK was planning to enact a law criminalizing the creation of non-consensual intimate images. It will also be illegal to supply digital tools used to create them.

It’s currently illegal to share deepfakes of adults in Britain. But legislation in the Data (Use and Access) Act that would make it an offence to create or request them has not been enforced - despite it passing in June 2025. This is frustrating to read that the UK government haven’t taken this issue seriously enough so this comes into effect.

Another reason that I think UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and others won’t ban X, although I’m not an expert, is that from a legal angle, it does sound hard. The Guardian has today published this explainer.

Then there’s the reality of what a showdown that would ensue if this happened. It’s hard to even just imagine the stink that Elon Musk, the Reform/GB News mob, Lucy Connolly fan club, the “UK has fallen people” across the pond in the US and others would kick up. This is although some of them are the very same people who regularly stand outside hotels housing asylum seekers demanding they be deported every week now because they’re such a risk to women and girls - including The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex where I marched to with Stand Up to Racism in July. Where’s there concern for women, girls and children now being abused on X?

Up to their usual gaslighting, they’re already claiming that the government is cracking down on free speech. Rupert Lowe a racist from the far right Restore Britain party, he who achieved infamy when he mistook some charity rowers for potential illegal migrants who he no doubt wanted deported, has threatened to take to the streets of London if X is banned. There’s threats from the US that they may also sanction the UK if the site is barred there.

Starmer, who’s pulled out all the stops for US President Donald Trump, inviting him on a state visit last year, we can assume doesn’t want to go up against Trump, who it’s thought would side with Musk on this even though they fell out last year. We’ve seen this before, whether it’s the BBC, Venezuela or US tech companies. Yet as a human rights barrister in another life he did face off with others.

It’s inevitable that Starmer will have to take on the world’s most powerful man sooner or later.Why not rip the band aid off with this? Considering Starmer’s days may be numbered since his ratings are really in the doldrums, doesn’t he want a legacy too?

Yesterday, there was talk that the UK may join forces with Australia and Canada, for a three-way response that would send a powerful message to Musk, according to our favorite outlet GB News, although Canada have already ruled out a ban, according to reports.

This seems like a good approach though. In my view, ensuring the safety of women, girls and children on X now is more important than putting in place an Australia-style social media ban on teens, which some experts have also said won’t work.

The other reason why I don’t think that X will be banned is because of the harsh reality that if people actually cared so much about women, girls and children, the person who’s in the White House simply wouldn’t be there right now. Sadly, since he was elected, I don’t think we’ve come that far.

Yet, something must be done. Immediately.

If it’s a ban, just think about this. If the far right don’t like it, could they not appeal to the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) - which we know they’re a huge fan of - to get this lifted? You’d love to see it.