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The Guardian newspaper has announced it is quitting Elon Musk’s X because it is a “toxic” social media platform.
In an article on the publication’s website, the Guardian said the “benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives” and will focus its efforts to promote its journalism elsewhere.
Reporters have been told they can remain on X with their personal profiles, but the newspaper will no longer be posting on the social media platform.
The Guardian and its sister publication Observer run around 40 active X accounts with over 20 million followers.
“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 article said.
“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The Guardian’s X bio now reads: “This account has been archived”.
Last year, US news outlets like NPR and PBS departed X after being classified as state-affiliated media under regulations Musk introduced.
Following Mr Trump‘s presidential victory last Wednesday, thousands of users have switched from X to its rival app Bluesky.
Bluesky, which was first introduced as a research project by Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, has gained over 1 million users in the last week and has grown close to 15 million users.
While Mr Dorsey was still in charge of Twitter, development began in 2019 on a “decentralised” version of the service. Following Musk’s acquisition, it was spun off and formally launched last year.
Jay Graber, the app’s CEO, now owns the majority of the business and runs it independently. It raised $15 million (£12 million) from investors Blockchain Capital in October.
Under Musk’s ownership, X has changed its verification process, reinstated banned accounts, and allowed blocked users to view people’s posts.
Research released earlier this month also found Musk appeared to have been artificially boosting his posts on X since mid July to promote pro-Trump content.
Many of these posts on X were either supporting the Republican candidate or undermining the campaign of his Democratic rival Kamala Harris, with the increase in views and retweets occurring at a much higher rate in comparison with other prominent political accounts on the app.
“This raises suspicions as to whether Musk has tweaked the platform’s algorithm to increase the reach of his posts in advance of the US presidential election,” wrote Timothy Graham, an associate professor in digital media at Queensland University of Technology and Mark Andrejevic, a professor in media at Monash University, who undertook the research.
