Bundesliga club quit X after publicly criticising Elon Musk
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| Photo: @fcstpauli |
X is now run by billionaire Musk, who purchased the social media platform for around $44 billion from founder Jack Dorsey back in October 2022.
Since taking over, Musk has made a number of changes to the platform, from changing the verification process to altering the name itself and ditching the bird-theme of the site that had previously been in place.
And St. Pauli, known for their progressive values and outspoken political activism, have since expressed concerns about the platform becoming a "hate machine" under Musk's leadership, citing the spread of racism, conspiracy theories, and hate speech.
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As a result of these concerns, St. Pauli have now announced in a strongly worded statement that they will be leaving the platform.
FC St. Pauli is withdrawing from the social media platform, X. The Boys in Brown joined the platform in 2013 and had 250,000 followers.St. Pauli, who are currently 16th in the league table, confirmed their current content will remain on the site, but they will no longer be posting.
Announcing its reasons for withdrawing, the club said that owner Elon Musk had turned a space for debate into an amplifier of hate that was capable of influencing the German parliamentary election campaign.
Since taking over Twitter, as the platform was previously known, Musk has converted X into a hate machine. Racism and conspiracy theories are allowed to spread unchecked and even curated. Insults and threats are seldom sanctioned and are sold as freedom of speech.
In addition, following his election victory Donald Trump has picked Musk to head up a new government department. Musk was a major backer of the Trump campaign and also used X for this purpose. It is to be assumed that X will also promote authoritarian, misanthropic and far-right content during the forthcoming German election campaign, this manipulating the public discourse.
A number of users have now flogged to alternative platform Bluesky - a rival social networking platform that has being launched by Dorsey.
FC St Pauli had already curbed its use of X and increasingly posted political statements in support of diversity and inclusion to make a stand against hate. Now the club is ceasing its activity on X.A number of businesses, including The Guardian, have also left the platform after Donald Trump's election to a second term.
The account will no longer be used, but the content of the last 11 years will remain online in view of its contemporary historical value.
The club would like to thank its members for the critical exchange on what to do about X and calls on its followers on the platform to switch to BlueSky.
FC St. Pauli's English account will also move to BlueSky.
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