Volt Luxembourg leaves X/Twitter
Twitter was once a village square, a meeting place for ideas and insights. But in recent years, our village square has become a toxic place: X's algorithms give plenty of space to disinformation, extremist ideas and threats. It's no longer a nice place.
Elon Musk first used X to help bring Donald Trump to power, and now he has even become part of his administration. Trump, who was previously banned from Twitter for spreading fake news, is now once again allowed to spread disinformation and hate on X along with all the other populists. In recent months, we have seen Musk's vision for the once independent Twitter: the platform is being used as a political weapon to weaken European countries. Extreme voices that suit Musk and Trump well are amplified by X, critical voices are suppressed and disinformation is given free rein. This undermines our democracy and gives Musk and Trump a power that no one should have.
Although X is also an important platform for Volt, it has now become so far removed from our values that we are drawing the line here. We must never forget that social networks in private hands are not a public space and that the rules are not set by us, but by the owners. Musk's new algorithms suppress freedom of speech and cause tweets outside the right-wing populist spectrum to fizzle out – no matter how much you may shout.
That is why we are now deciding that we no longer want to play by these rules. We are now deciding to turn our backs to X, in the hope that other politicians will follow us. This is an exciting step. X gave us the reach that platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon don't directly offer. But Volt stands for progress like no other party. Together, we are fighting for a world in which social media connects rather than divides; in which extremism is reduced rather than amplified. In which we better regulate tech companies. A world in which we create our own European social media guided by values.
The Hague can no longer stand by and watch as an American tech billionaire divides us, weakens us and undermines our democracy. Everyone with an X-account, including non-politicians, has the opportunity to break X's dominance. You can all make a difference with your own #eXit and give the alternatives a chance.
So remember: As of today, we can only be found outside of X. We are already ‘tweeting’ on Bluesky and in the European open-source project, the Fediverse, on Mastodon. We hope to see you there as well.
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/voltluxembourg.org
Mastodon: https://toot.community/@voltluxembourg