Major Mainstream Outlet Abruptly Quits ‘Toxic’ X/Twitter

It’s not only angry liberals who are rage-quitting X following President-elect Donald Trump’s dominant victory. On Wednesday one of the largest outlets in the world abruptly stopped posting, writing that the “toxic” platform necessitated its exit.

The BBC reported that the Guardian, the U.K. paper of record, announced it would no longer participate in a “toxic media platform” owned by Elon Musk, a Trump supporter who on Tuesday was tapped to co-lead a new U.S. Department of Government Efficiency. In a statement, the mainstream news outlet said Trump’s win “underlined” its concern that Musk unfairly used X to “shape political discourse.”

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“We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our journalism elsewhere,” the paper wrote in a message to readers on Wednesday. “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.”

The navel-gazing editorial team took a final shot at Musk and the prominent social media platform before making a plea for donations. “Social media can be an important tool for news organisations and help us to reach new audiences but, at this point, X now plays a diminished role in promoting our work. Our journalism is available and open to all on our website and we would prefer people to come to theguardian.com and support our work there.”

“Thankfully, we can do this because our business model does not rely on viral content tailored to the whims of the social media giants’ algorithms – instead we’re funded directly by our readers. You can support the Guardian today from just £1/$1.”

News of the Guardian’s exit should come as no surprise given the animosity between Musk and mainstream media outlets in recent years. In 2023 he slapped NPR and the BBC with “state-sponsored media” disclaimers typically reserved for outlets controlled by authoritarian regimes in places like Russia or North Korea. In response, NPR rage-quit X.

Allegations of conservative biases on X come after conservatives have long complained of liberal coverage by outlets like NPR. During the onset of Covid-19 in April 2020, NPR ran back-to-back pieces dismissing the theory that the virus escaped a Wuhan epidemiology lab as being on “thin ice” with “virtually no chance” such a scenario could occur. No correction was attached to either story since earlier this year when U.S. officials designated a lab leak as the most likely culprit.

“Seems accurate,” Musk wrote at the time and included a definition of state-sponsored media which he said applies to NPR. This time around, he may be too busy to clap back at the Guardian; his heavy investment in President-elect Trump paid off, and Musk will be at the forefront of the administration’s effort to fundamentally scale back the size of the federal government.

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