Where to fish for social insights when the pond turns into a cesspit?

Expressing the opinion that Twitter/X.com is a horrible, toxic place full of fake -news, perma-outrage, abuse, and bots whose job it is to perpetuate all of the above, isn’t exactly a hot take. However, despite this being the case for a while now, it’s hard to deny that there has been somewhat of a further downturn in the health of the platform since the disruptive takeover of Elon Musk.