Austria: Left-wing journalists leave Musk's platform X hand in hand
Following Donald Trump's election victory, several left-wing journalists have left Elon Musk's platform X. At the weekend, in addition to the Zeit im Bild news anchor Armin Wolf, the "right-wing extremism expert" Ingrid Brodnig, the editor-in-chief of the left-wing weekly Falter, Florian Klenk, and dozens of other left-wing Austrian journalists closed their accounts. Not secretly, quietly and discreetly, but in a concerted action under the hashtag #eXit. Their target: the Bluesky platform.
Musk the Super Troll
Also taking part in the event, according to a report in the daily newspaper Standard, are Thomas Mohr (Puls 4/Puls 24), Corinna Milborn (ProSieben/Sat.1/Puls4), Stefan Kaltenbrunner, Cathrin Kahlweit ( Süddeutsche Zeitung), Oliver Das Gupta (Spiegel / Standard), Patrick Gruska (ORF).
The most famous of the renegades, Armin Wolf, who recently had 640,000 followers on X, explains the #eXit on his personal blog. Tesla billionaire Elon Musk is of course to blame, who, in the eyes of the head of Austria's most important news program, is working tirelessly to "destroy X as a constructive discourse platform". Musk has "allowed the madmen to take over the institution".
"Anyone who has a lot of followers can no longer write a political post without dozens or hundreds of underhanded comments from mostly masked aggressive trolls. For more exposed women, X has become unacceptable anyway. And the ultimate troll is unfortunately the boss who owns the place," Wolf writes in his blog post. "Elon Musk may be a brilliant entrepreneur and immensely rich, but on X he spreads conspiracy fantasies, disinformation and fakes without any inhibitions. He has turned the most politically relevant social media platform in the world into a propaganda platform for his political adventure as Donald Trump's best buddy and a gigantic hate speech slingshot," Wolf continues.
Even the Wiener Linien drew a line under it
The moderator was active on the platform for 16 years and made no fewer than 126,725 posts during that time. That is now over - at least for now.
The sadness over the departures is limited on X. It is still unclear how many fans the journalists will be able to take with them to the competitor "BlueSky". The once self-proclaimed "Austro-Twitteria" is not alone. The Guardian, the Austrian Press Club Concordia and Wiener Linien - the city's tram company - have also already left the platform.
Also taking part in the event, according to a report in the daily newspaper Standard, are Thomas Mohr (Puls 4/Puls 24), Corinna Milborn (ProSieben/Sat.1/Puls4), Stefan Kaltenbrunner, Cathrin Kahlweit ( Süddeutsche Zeitung), Oliver Das Gupta (Spiegel / Standard), Patrick Gruska (ORF).
The most famous of the renegades, Armin Wolf, who recently had 640,000 followers on X, explains the #eXit on his personal blog. Tesla billionaire Elon Musk is of course to blame, who, in the eyes of the head of Austria's most important news program, is working tirelessly to "destroy X as a constructive discourse platform". Musk has "allowed the madmen to take over the institution".
"Anyone who has a lot of followers can no longer write a political post without dozens or hundreds of underhanded comments from mostly masked aggressive trolls. For more exposed women, X has become unacceptable anyway. And the ultimate troll is unfortunately the boss who owns the place," Wolf writes in his blog post. "Elon Musk may be a brilliant entrepreneur and immensely rich, but on X he spreads conspiracy fantasies, disinformation and fakes without any inhibitions. He has turned the most politically relevant social media platform in the world into a propaganda platform for his political adventure as Donald Trump's best buddy and a gigantic hate speech slingshot," Wolf continues.
Even the Wiener Linien drew a line under it
The moderator was active on the platform for 16 years and made no fewer than 126,725 posts during that time. That is now over - at least for now.
The sadness over the departures is limited on X. It is still unclear how many fans the journalists will be able to take with them to the competitor "BlueSky". The once self-proclaimed "Austro-Twitteria" is not alone. The Guardian, the Austrian Press Club Concordia and Wiener Linien - the city's tram company - have also already left the platform.
Source: Junge Freiheit
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