Britain’s The Guardian newspaper introduced Wednesday it might now not put up content material 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 practically 11 million followers on X, mentioned in a press release on its web site.
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 famous.
“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X deal with — @guardian — was nonetheless accessible Wednesday however a message on it suggested “this account has been archived” whereas redirecting guests to its web site.
The Guardian famous that X customers would nonetheless be capable of share its articles, and that it might nonetheless “occasionally embed content from X” inside its articles given “the nature of live news reporting”.
It additionally mentioned its reporters would nonetheless be capable of use the location and 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 bought X, previously often called Twitter, for $44 billion in 2022 and has constantly courted controversy together with his use of the platform, notably in the course of the latest US presidential election.
Musk endorsed Donald Trump and used his private account boasting practically 205 million followers to sway voters in favour of the Republican, with a slew of incendiary, deceptive posts criticised for cranking up the political temperature.
Trump on Tuesday introduced 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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