Frankfurt/Berlin (Reuters) – Because of the chaotic conditions at the short message service X (formerly Twitter), according to a survey, numerous companies are considering completely withdrawing from the platform.
A representative survey by the digital association Bitkom published on Wednesday showed that 21 percent of the companies surveyed with an X user account were up for discussion. Around two thirds of them planned to take this step in the current or next year. For the remaining 192 companies surveyed with their own X profile, deletion was not an issue or they did not provide any information. However, almost half have reduced their contributions or stopped them altogether. The federal government still wants to maintain its presence.
Billionaire and entrepreneur Elon Musk is coming under pressure for his increasing political statements on his purchased platform X. Critics accuse Musk, who has more than 158 million followers, of supporting right-wing radical positions. A government spokesman said on Wednesday in Berlin that the fight against anti-Semitism in all its forms was very important for the government. “The federal government notes with concern public statements made by the X owner in this regard,” he added. The events surrounding Platform “At the moment we are still using this platform,” said the spokesman. Musk himself resolutely defended himself against accusations of anti-Semitism in a discussion with Jewish representatives a few days ago.
In a statement distributed on Appeals made directly to Musk would have had no effect. Therefore, it is now time to build up pressure from outside and “hit him where it hurts.” A boycott is the only effective measure, they wrote. Specifically, the call mentions Disney, Amazon, Apple and other large advertising customers. The signatories also demand that Apple and Google remove the X app from their list of offers.
In the past few days, Musk has intervened in the migration debate in both the USA and Europe and shared an election call for the AfD. What is particularly controversial, however, is that he drastically reduced the departments at X that controlled and sorted out hateful news or right-wing extremist content. Musk had turned X around in the past few months and laid off a large number of employees.
According to the Bitkom survey, this is now leading to reactions from companies. “The increase in fake news, the increase in hate speech or the expression of sometimes extreme political attitudes have apparently led to massive uncertainty among many companies,” said Bitkom Managing Director Bernhard Rohleder. As a result, 36 percent of the more than 600 companies with 20 or more employees that took part in the survey placed fewer or no more advertisements on X. However, 29 percent had not advertised there before Musk took over the platform about a year ago.
In addition, more than half of those surveyed were of the opinion that German companies should stay away from X because the platform promotes division in society. Almost three quarters advocated stricter regulation of the short message service.
(Report by Hakan Ersen, Andreas Rinke; edited by Ralf Banser. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at [email protected] (for politics and economics) or [email protected] (for companies and markets ).)