this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
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German anti-racism body leaves X over 'rise in hate speech'::A German agency that tackles discrimination and racism says it is quitting the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. It cited a rise in hate speech since owner Elon Musk took over last year.

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[–] [email protected] 61 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Many German officials have resisted calls to quit X, saying there was no substitute channel at present that would allow them to reach a broad section of the online public.

That's it right there - this line really emphasizes why Musky came up with the idea to buy the platform in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 10 months ago (2 children)

It's also an exit condition. When it no longer serves as a channel to reach enough people, they leave, and more leave as a result.. the interesting question is there that threshold lies

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

There certainly isn't a shortage of government-run mastodon servers in Germany. It's probably a good idea to make sure everything gets posted there and agencies with small and specialised audiences can get off twitter (also, facebook) quite easily. Say if you're interested in updates to discussions about updates to the tax code.

Others will stay as long as there's people to reach and the information is important. E.g. the weather service can withdraw when they get tired of the platform, while catastrophe relief just plainly won't as long as there's people on there. Everything actually important that the weather service says is also said by catastrophe relief (imminent bad storm, extreme UV/heat, what have you).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

I guess depending on how many are just bots vs. actual users.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

I honestly don't get Elon's obsession with X. First it was his thing with x.com and PayPal, then it was SpaceX, then he called his son X, then Twitter....

No wonder his wife became his X wife.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I think he believes that 'X' is 'the unknown' and that makes it cool and mysterious.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

still not out of puberty, it seems.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Have you seen his Tweets? He's definitely got a 10-year-old mentality. He changed his screen name to 'Harry Bolz' for a while. That's the level of 'humor' he's at.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I just read them. He thinks those "jokes" are funny or something. His comments just suck overall, glad that Twitter is dying.

[–] praise_idleness 3 points 10 months ago

He did that because he wanted that X husband status

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago

Tbh it has taken far longer than I expected but people do love their Xitter

[–] [email protected] 24 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I'm amazed that the EU or Germany still haven't blocked Twitter for that matter.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Only a matter of time…

[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Also keep calling twitter, X is a dumb name

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


FADA said hateful comments and disinformation had "increased particularly" since Tesla tycoon Elon Musk took over the platform formerly known as Twitter last year.

In a statement, FADA said there had been an "enormous increase" in anti-trans and homophobic hostility, racism, misogyny, anti-semitism and other misanthropic content.

Ataman said FADA could only try to combat the surge in hate comments by channeling more resources to the platform, which could be a questionable use of public money.

A rise in disinformation on the platform, with doctored images and misleading claims, has been reported since the Palestinian terror group Hamas launched a massive surprise attack on Israel on Saturday.

Many German officials have resisted calls to quit X, saying there was no substitute channel at present that would allow them to reach a broad section of the online public.

X said it had taken steps to curb the recent spread of inappropriate posts and that it had removed newly created Hamas-affiliated accounts to "prevent terrorist content from being distributed online."


The original article contains 340 words, the summary contains 168 words. Saved 51%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] valek879 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I finally deleted Twitter from my phone a couple weeks ago.

I only used it for porn for the last 3 years and hadn't been on in over a month but I saw an article on here and was curious. So I opened it up and looked to see how the porn situation was going. I was going to keep it around if I could find a bit of good porn. But I scrolled and scrolled down through my feed and I only had politics, bigots, ragebait, and hateporn. I hadn't realized it had gotten so bad... I also have no idea where all my porn creators fled to.

Oh well, nothing of value was lost.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Exact same reason why I still use Reddit via the web. Not because I like it but because I have porn there.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Shouldn't that be exactly why they don't leave the place they're "needed most?" Why exist solely to "preach to the saved?" The only reason Religion does that is to exploit the congregation out of their money.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Shouldn't the anti-racism group, like... Fight harder instead of just letting the racists have at it? 🤔

[–] yata 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Making a statement by leaving a racist platform is fighting harder.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

In what way? Even one of their own people is quoted in the article:

Ataman said FADA could only try to combat the surge in hate comments by channeling more resources to the platform, which could be a questionable use of public money.

Leaving the platform altogether isn't fighting against the discrimination or misinformation. They're more worried about how their agency would be perceived staying on the platform. This isn't a statement. It's giving up.