X is a 'toxic platform': here's why users and newspapers are fleeing Musk's social network
The Guardian: away from social because 'Musk uses his influence to shape political debate'. But even in Italy politicians and celebrities are fleeing from X after Musk's statements on Italian judges that provoked the reaction of President Mattarella. The data says, however, that users have grown by 17% in a year
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Key points
3' min read
X is a 'toxic media platform' and its owner, Elon Musk, was able to use his influence to influence the political debate' for the US elections. With these justifications the British Guardian newspaper, which has more than 80 profiles on X with around 27 million followers, announced its decision to leave Musk's social network. Now also in Italy, especially after Musk's words on the judges of the Court of Rome who suspended the validation of the detention of seven migrants taken to Albania and provoked the reaction of President Sergio Mattarella, there are several show business personalities and politicians who have decided to say enough.
With the role assumed by the Ceo of SpaceX and Tesla alongside Donald Trump, who has just appointed him to head the new Department for Government Efficiency, the outcry from the media (including many French newspapers), institutions, but also from many users has now returned. And many of these 'fugitives' are said to have flocked to Bluesky, the similar text-based social network founded in 2024 by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who has since left the platform.
Meanwhile, according to reports in the Wall Street Journal, Elon Musk has appointed Mahmoud Reza Banki chief financial officer of X. Banki was previously the chief financial officer of streaming platform Tubi.
Media and star run
.The flight had already started two years ago, when Twitter passed into the hands of Elon Musk for 44 billion dollars, changing its policy and then last year also its name to X. The Guardian's decision to leave the platform in protest against the spread of 'alarming content' is the one that is making the most noise, but it is certainly not the first editorial entity to make this choice both in Europe and on the other side of the ocean. The latest is the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, which is abandoning the platform where now 'conspiracy theories and disinformation find a sounding board', the editors declared. Several French newspapers, including Le Figaro, Le Monde, Le Parisien and Les Echos, have denounced X because, they explain, Musk's social media exploits their content without any remuneration, thus violating the European Union's 'related rights' rules that allow newspapers, magazines or press agencies to be paid when their content is reused by digital giants.
Several cultural institutions have also taken this decision: the Berlin Film Festival announced its farewell a few days ago, while in the US, Taylor Swift's fans, in open polemic with Trump throughout the election campaign, have moved en masse to the Bluesky platform. Like them, several stars have deactivated their accounts, most recently Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis.
