The Guardian has decided to cease posting on Elon Musk‘s social media platform X, previously known as Twitter. The British newspaper group, which endorsed Kamala Harris in her failed bid for the U.S. presidency, complains, “The U.S. presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.”
The Guardian claims it has been considering exiting the platform “for a while given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism.” However, The Guardian itself boasts close to 11 million followers on the platform, and leftist politicians such as Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) also own large followings and regularly receive tens of thousands of likes for their posts—suggesting X is not biased against the left, it simply declines to censor users who lean right at scale.
The Guardian concedes that it will continue embedding X posts in its news coverage and that its journalists will still use the platform for news-gathering.
In a report covering its own exit announcement, The Guardian complains that users banned by X’s previous ownership, including Alex Jones, Andrew Tate, and Tommy Robinson, have been allowed back on the platform.
Other social media platforms are gaining new users from leftists’ post-election abandonment of X. Meta’s Threads is experiencing growth, while Bluesky, founded by former Twitter head Jack Dorsey, saw a surge in downloads recently. Both are far more censorious than X.
