I was interviewed for this thoughtful piece in Research Professional:
Other platforms have come into play, too. Mark Carrigan, a senior lecturer in education at the University of Manchester, tells Research Fortnight that there has been a “profound fragmentation” of communities from Twitter across “at least five platforms”, namely, LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon and X.
Similarly, Carrigan says it is harder for research to circulate outside of its originating community because “the network effects of Twitter have largely been lost”.
“What made it powerful was how organically this could happen, as a consequence of these interconnected networks which have now fragmented,” he adds. “This is the main thing that’s been lost…it’s not impossible, it just takes much more work for most people than was once the case, often with much less successful outcomes.”
Read the full thing here: https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-universities-2026-4-will-the-academic-exodus-from-x-silence-research/ (£)
Mark Carrigan 