The Guardian will no longer officially post on X, formerly known as Twitter. I’m sure one could critique the decision as having come a bit belatedly. But good for them for doing it at all when so many other journalistic sources seem to think it’s still an essential part of their business.
And even better, they spell out their rationale:
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 US 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.
As they spell out, they “can do this because our business model does not rely on viral content tailored to the whims of the social media giants’ algorithms”. That’s a good lesson for us all. If your business depends on someone else’s company treating your favourably then that’s rather risky, even it’s not run by a dangerous and unpredictable megalomaniac.
I hope it goes well for them and that readers continue to support them. Who knows, it might even bring in extra punters. Supposedly they raised an extra couple of million of dollars in donations when they went out of their way to endorse Harris, and criticise Trump, in the recent debacle of the billionaire owners of the Washington Post and LA Times censoring their journalists.