The Guardian has announced an end to the publication of content from Elon Musk‘s official X accounts, citing “often disturbing content” found on the platform, which it describes as “toxic”.
The British newspaper reports: “We wanted to let readers know that we will no longer be publishing on any official Guardian on the social networking site X, as the benefits of the former Twitter presence are outweighed by the negatives.”
The Guardian has more than 80 accounts on X and counts around 27 million followers.
The “far-right”, “racism” and the US election
The paper expressed longstanding concerns about “far-right conspiracy theories” and racism in platform X, and crystallized its decision with the U.S. election.
“The US presidential election campaign only served to underscore what we have long held: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk has managed to use his influence to shape the political discourse.”
Elon Musk has come under a lot of criticism from anti-hate speech groups and the EU over content standards on X since 2022, when he bought the platform. The world’s richest man and announced minister in Donald Trump’s administration has reinstated banned accounts including those of Alex Jones, Andrew Tate and British activist Tommy Robinson.
However, according to the announcement, X users will still be able to share Guardian articles on the platform, and X posts will be embedded in news stories. And journalists will be able to use the platform to be able to gather news. There will also be no restrictions on journalists using the site beyond the organisation’s existing social media guidelines.
“Social media can be an important tool for news organisations and help us reach new audiences but, at this point, X now plays a reduced role in promoting our work. Our journalism is available and open to all on our website,” the paper says.
Series of departures from agencies and organizations
Last year, US-based National Public Radio [NPR], which is a for-profit US media organisation, stopped publishing on X after the social media platform labelled it as a “state-linked media outlet”. PBS, a US public broadcaster, also suspended its posts for the same reason.
This month, the Berlin Film Festival said it was abandoning X, without giving an official reason, and last month, the North Wales Police Force said it had stopped using X because it was “no longer consistent with our values”.
