Britain’s The Guardian newspaper launched Wednesday it would not put up content material materials from its official accounts on Elon Musk’s X, branding it a “toxic media platform” residence to “often disturbing content”.
“We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives,” the left-leaning newspaper, which has virtually 11 million followers on X, talked about in a press launch on its website online.
It added that its “resources could be better used promoting our journalism elsewhere”.
“This is something we have been considering for a while given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism,” the assertion well-known.
“The US presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.”
The paper’s foremost X take care of — @guardian — was nonetheless accessible Wednesday nevertheless a message on it advised “this account has been archived” whereas redirecting friends to its website online.
The Guardian well-known that X clients would nonetheless be able to share its articles, and that it would nonetheless “occasionally embed content from X” inside its articles given “the nature of live news reporting”.
It moreover talked about its reporters would nonetheless be able to use the placement and completely different social networks on which the paper doesn’t have an account.
“Social media can be an important tool for news organisations and help us to reach new audiences but, at this point, X now plays a diminished role in promoting our work,” The Guardian added.
Musk purchased X, beforehand typically known as Twitter, for $44 billion in 2022 and has consistently courted controversy collectively along with his use of the platform, notably in the midst of the most recent US presidential election.
Musk endorsed Donald Trump and used his non-public account boasting virtually 205 million followers to sway voters in favour of the Republican, with a slew of incendiary, misleading posts criticised for cranking up the political temperature.
Trump on Tuesday launched that the Tesla and SpaceX billionaire would lead a so-called Department of Government Efficiency in his incoming administration, alongside the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
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