“Because Guardian Don’t post on X anymore.” In a short article published on Wednesday, November 13, the Guardiana British newspaper with 10.8 million subscribers on X (former Twitter), announced that it was leaving the social network owned by Elon Musk.
“We believe that the benefits of remaining at X are now outweighed by the disadvantages, and that our resources could be better used to promote our journalism elsewhere”explains the newspaper. The US presidential campaign was the trigger for this decision, which had been considered for a long time, he adds: “X is a toxic platform and its owner, Elon Musk, has used it to influence public debate. »
If it stops using it, the newspaper does not seem to have decided for the moment to definitively close its X account. Nor has it commented on the possibility, for its journalists, of continuing to publish on the network individually. “However, our journalists will continue to use this site to gather information, just as they use other social networks where The Guardian is not officially present.”however it specifies the article.
HE Guardian It also has 8.9 million subscribers on Facebook, 5.8 million subscribers on Instagram, 2.3 million on YouTube and 19,000 on Mastodon, a platform whose approach is similar to that of X.
Distrust in the media
The British newspaper is by no means the first media outlet to make such a decision. Before him, other titles, such as the Swedish public radio Sveriges Radio or the American media NPR and PBS, chose to distance themselves from the platform and stop publishing. Since April 12, 2023, the official NPR radio account has shown a message explaining to readers how to follow his work outside of Elon Musk’s platform. At the time, while the billionaire had not yet openly revealed his pro-Trump positions, he did so to protest new rules for labeling media accounts on the social network.
The owner of Tesla, SpaceX and X has never hidden his animosity towards the media world. Already in 2018, unhappy with the treatment reserved for his electric car company after the publication of an investigation, he raised the idea of launching a rating service for media and journalists.
This mistrust has increased considerably since he became the head of the social network: slowdown in the viewing of some sites (in particular that of the New York Times), modification of the way links pointing to press sites are displayed, automatic response to the media through an email with a simple emoji (💩), obsessive publication of messages claiming that traditional media “lie” to the public… This Wednesday, again, in response to an account “You are the media now. »
