“All truly Christian Communication leads to an encounter,
in some form, with the living Christ.”
The Rt Revd John Pritchard
The shifting social media landscape is a challenge that we, as a diocese, share with our churches, clergy and the wider Church of England. Since Elon Musk bought Twitter and renamed it X, he has made many changes – including relaxing misinformation policies and allowing AI to train on user content. There are ethical concerns about other social media platforms, too. Alarmingly, Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp) has echoed these changes in its own practices, additionally removing their factchecking services and withdrawing from corporate Equality, Diversity and Inclusion practices in the USA. There are also concerns around TikTok’s independence from the Chinese state, which saw it briefly banned in the USA.
These changes undoubtedly create an online space where disinformation and harmful, extremist content can widely spread. The current state of the dominant social media platforms risks further entrenching societal divisions and fuelling hatred in our communities. Given this, many users are understandably leaving X and other social media platforms – and we support individuals (including our own Bishops), churches and other dioceses in making their own choices on whether to stay or leave.
As Director of Communications, I’m now frequently asked about whether we as a diocese will leave X. With my team and senior colleagues we’ve thought about this long and hard over the past few months and – for now, at least – we’re going to stay.
In part, this is a pragmatic decision. As a diocese, in 2024 around 56% of our social media reach came from X, with Facebook making up 41%. Many of our churches and clergy have presence on both platforms. Leaving X would hugely restrict our digital work, including support of daily prayer for our parishes, fundraising at parish and diocesan levels, and helping parishes to promote and recruit vacancies. We are exploring and seeking to grow our presence on other platforms (follow us on TikTok!), but to leave Facebook and X without strong alternatives would decimate our online presence. We’re keeping an eye on the situation and we will do this if necessary – but we’ve got to be sure it’s the right call.
More importantly, our engagement on X and other social media channels is overwhelmingly positive. We are committed to transparency and positivity in our social media presence – and that’s true of most of those who engage directly with us there, too. Occasionally there’ll be disagreement or critique, but as long as it’s constructive and respectful, we think it’s to be welcomed. Where it oversteps the mark, we’ll always seek to resolve that separately, away from social media.
The Church of England is committed to being a Christian presence in every community – and for us that extends to social media. After all, digital communities are just as real as offline ones. In the UK, 85% of our population used social media in 2024 and when we look at young people that number rises to 99%. To grow younger as a Church we know that we need to reach young people where they are – and we believe we can be a welcoming, Christ-focused presence, offering a reprieve from doom-scrolling and the chance for people to connect with our communities, parishes and, most importantly, Jesus.
We are keeping our presence on X and other platforms under close review. But we hope that – for now, at least – we can continue to be a positive and gracious presence wherever people engage with the Diocese of Southwark, as we seek to be ever more Christ-centred and outward focused.
This is a challenge we are all facing, and we encourage you to please share your approach and ideas with us as we find the way forward.
Anna Drew
Director of Communications
