Summary
The Guardian has announced it will stop posting on Elon Musk’s platform, X, citing “often disturbing content” such as far-right conspiracy theories and racism.
The news outlet, with 27 million followers across over 80 accounts, stated that the US presidential election coverage on X reinforced its view that the platform had become “toxic.”
While The Guardian’s official accounts will withdraw, reporters may still use X for newsgathering.
This move follows similar actions by NPR, PBS, and other organizations concerned about the platform’s content standards under Musk’s ownership.
What is the concern? That if Bluesky falls, the instances fall because of the choke-point?
Isn’t this their plan in the long-term? (Article from February):
Bluesky is taking a big leap toward federating. On Thursday, the social network announced that it is opening up early access for users and developers who want to self-host their data. While this isn’t true federation yet, the company plans to open up federation to larger servers with even more users in its next phase. When the dust settles, anyone can (in theory) create their own server with their own rules on Bluesky’s AT Protocol.
The concern is that without true federation Bluesky is still for all intents and purposes a corporation-controlled social media, just like Twitter, and therefore subject to the exact same enshittification cycle.
I’ll believe they’ll add true federation when it happens. Color me sceptical, but I’ll be happy to be proven wrong.
