Dear readers, it finally happened. I finally felt my age.

It happened last week: in the wake of a frenzied dash to flee Twitter, I tried my first new social network in nearly a year.

The backdrop, for those who are blissfully unaware of the trials and tribulations of Twitter, was that Elon Musk, sometimes the world’s richest man, has bought the site. A diehard “free-speech” guy, Musk promised sweeping changes to Twitter, including “making comedy legal”. Quite what that means I’m not entirely sure.

But anyway, it doesn’t take a lot to spook Jews, let alone the more social media-savvy ones. Many pointed out Musk’s spotty record on embracing contrarians — reaching out to Kanye West in the midst of his antisemitic rantings and generally giving oxygen to the sort of online behaviour that gives rise to antisemitism online.

It would be unfair to blame Musk, or even the original Twitter owners, for the vast levels of antisemitism on the platform.

Because sadly, that’s the reality of being on the internet. No matter how sanitised the platform or how verified the users, it’s something that just seems to endure. You see it on TikTok, in coded videos designed to avoid censorship, you see it on Facebook, YouTube, anywhere where people can freely comment. So of course you see it on Twitter.

Historically, the reason why so many antisemites have congregated on Twitter is because of the platform’s light-touch approach to banning and blocking.

This, while not being fixed, has vastly improved in the past few years, hence the alarm when the boss at the top changed and a widespread fear that antisemites would feel emboldened in a “free-speech” environment

In fact, in the days since Musk’s takeover, the Anti-Defamation League has reported that antisemitic content is surging on the network, and has pleaded with advertisers to abandon Twitter in an attempt to force Musk to take his responsibilities as mayor of the internet’s town square a little more seriously.

But to some the damage has already been done. Over the weekend, rumblings of a new promised land began to spread like ripples through the waters of Jewish Twitter.

Where would we go to? CounterSocial (quite trolly), Bluesky (no, me neither) or the now surging Mastodon? For reasons now unclear to me, I picked Mastodon as my digital Canaan. But just like my wandering forebears, I have not found it an easy time. The app doesn’t make sense, the servers into which users are siloed are impenetrable.

I feel how I assume my mum feels when she thinks about TikTok. I struggled through for about 45 minutes before deciding actually maybe Musk’s Twitter wasn’t so bad after all.

Apparently I’m not alone. Jews are famously complainy, but even so the numbers of Jewish users returning to Twitter to both complain about Twitter and whine about the alternatives surprised even me. It’s almost the equivalent of living through slavery in Egypt, leaving and then coming back to complain that the Red Sea made your feet a bit wet.

Jews have an almost chronic addiction to Twitter. And I think this actually may be to our ultimate benefit. It would be lovely if the world self-policed, trolls on social media were slapped down by non-Jews, and antisemitism was eradicated online and off, but sadly it doesn’t quite work that way.

Jews need to be on Twitter, to call out, confront and argue against the antisemitism that is endemic on the internet.

Whether we like it or not, whether it’s owned by a terminally online billionaire or not, sadly Twitter is too important for Jews to abandon.

Despite plenty of evidence that it’s a bad idea, Twitter is still the birthplace of pretty much every idea taken seriously by mainstream politicians in the western world.

Simply, we don’t really have a choice. As long as Twitter is still the main way people throw their weight around online, it’s up to us to make sure that the antisemites face consequences.

There’s a small possibility that had Jews not universally risen up to condemn him, Kanye would still have his Adidas deal, his clout and all the perks he’s lost in the last few weeks.

It’s a sad truth, but non-Jews will never get it. They’ll never care as much as we do about trying to eradicate antisemitism online. That’s why we ultimately have to stay on Twitter.