2024-11-15

Why I'm not at X

It's a general weakness of social media that political muddleheads, conspiracy ideologues and fanatics of all kinds can spread their rubbish unhindered under the guise of freedom of opinion. The damage caused by disinformation is considerable. But unfortunately the problem cannot be completely avoided without strict censorship. Nobody wants that, of course. On Twitter, however, it reached a level that prompted me to delete my account there in 2022.

After X-man Elon bought Twitter, things got a lot worse. Decent people, reputable organisations and companies are leaving the platform, which has since been renamed X, in droves. As a result, the proportion of negative elements is growing. This is why the German football club FC St. Pauli has also withdrawn from X. The sports fans explain their decision as follows:

‘Owner Elon Musk has turned a debate space into a hate amplifier that can also influence the federal election campaign’, ... ‘Racism and conspiracy theories spread unhindered or are even curated. Insults and threats are barely sanctioned and sold as supposed freedom of expression’, ... Musk had ‘turned X into a hate machine’ and had already ‘actively supported’ Donald Trump in the US election campaign, it said. ‘It can be assumed that X is also promoting authoritarian, misanthropic and right-wing extremist content in the German parliamentary election campaign and thus manipulating public discourse.’ Source: t-online

Unfortunately, I have to note that various civil society organisations - especially world federations - are still publishing their memes on X. Have they not yet realised what a disgusting swamp this is? How can they credibly campaign for a better world if they destroy their own reputation by doing so?

Here's an alternative:

The exodus from X to Bluesky has happened – the era of mass social media platforms is over | Gaby Hinsliff | The Guardian


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