Britain’s top left-wing newspaper, The Guardian, has announced it will no longer post on Elon Musk’s X social media platform over “far-right conspiracy theories and racism” and Musk’s decision to campaign for Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election.
The international pushback against Elon Musk following Donald Trump’s victory last week went into full swing on Wednesday, with The Guardian quitting the X platform, claiming that its “resources could be better used promoting our journalism elsewhere.”
In a blog post pinned to its X profile, which boasts nearly 11 million followers, the left-wing establishment paper wrote: “We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives.”
“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 paper did not provide any examples of racism or so-called conspiracy theories in its announcement.
Additionally, the Guardian complained that X owner Elon Musk has “been able to use its influence to shape political discourse,” pointing specifically to the recent U.S. presidential campaign, in which Musk served as a top campaign surrogate on the trail and a vocal advocate on X for Mr Trump.
On Wednesday, The Guardian continued to post to its Facebook account, where the left-wing paper has over a million fewer followers than on X.
They are a laboriously vile propaganda machine
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2024
It comes amid increasing pushback against Musk and his platform in Europe following Mr Trump’s landslide victory over Vice President Kamala Harris last week.
In Germany, for example, Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said over the weekend that Europe “cannot put democratic discourse in the hands of Elon Musk” and demanded more stringent censorship enforcement against social media platforms.
Leftist lawmakers in Italy have also warned that Elon Musk is a “danger to democracy” after the Tesla chief criticized the Court of Rome for sending illegal boat migrants back to Italy from Albania this week.
The outrage over Musk expressing his personal views and deciding to support Donald Trump comes in contrast to the relative silence over other top Big Tech bigwigs pouring enormous financial donations to Democrat politicians in America, including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
There was also little pushback over social media platforms, such as Twitter under its previous leadership and Facebook, censoring political speech at the behest of the U.S. government.
Responding to the Guardian’s announcement on Wednesday, Mr Musk retorted, “They are a laboriously vile propaganda machine,” in a thinly veiled reference to the paper’s close relationship with the left-wing Labour Party government in Britain.
German Vice Chancellor Habeck Demands More Censorship of Elon Musk’s X After Trump Victoryhttps://t.co/QdgyU0ulNi
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 10, 2024
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