By Rob Reynolds, Director of External Relations

With the controversy surrounding the Twitter social media channel since Elon Musk took control, this week’s Jaw debate, ‘This house would close Bedales’ Twitter accounts’, saw a high quality well-informed debate from two student/teacher teams. The audience was introduced to the discussion with the commitment that a poll that would follow the discussion would be binding, and that the school would enact the results, so the stakes were high.
 
Jen Moore (Teacher of English) kicked off speaking against Twitter and was followed by Nick Meigh (Head of History) who countered; the two student speakers then continued the arguments: Arthur Dove (Block 4) speaking for the motion and Herbie Holness (6.1) against. All four spoke eloquently and persuasively raising the pertinent issues and good order was kept by the debate Chair, Clare Jarmy (Assistant Head, Learning & Development). Arguments against Twitter included its addictive nature driven by its algorithms, its tendency to be divisive, polarise and misinform, the relaxation of its security, re-instatement of the accounts of far-right activists and increased hate speech and impact on minority groups; arguments for the channel included giving people a choice, freedom of speech, its positive role in activism, and to inform, educate and offer alternative views, that a new CEO has been announced to make improvements, and that people should be educated in its use rather than banning all social media channels.
 
Thank you to all the contributors and to those who voted. Of the 206 students and staff who participated in the poll, 59.7% voted for the school to retain its Twitter accounts; 32.5% voted for the school to close its accounts and 7.8% were undecided.
 
So the tweeting will continue…