Summary
Over 60 German and Austrian universities and research institutions announced their exit from Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter), citing the platform’s promotion of right-wing populist content and its incompatibility with democratic and scientific values.
This follows Germany’s Federal Court of Justice and trade unions leaving the platform.
The German government is also debating a withdrawal, expressing concerns over X’s polarizing effect on political discourse.
The departure comes after Musk’s public support for Germany’s far-right AfD party and a live talk with its leader Alice Weidel ahead of upcoming elections.
Remember when “social media” was our friends posting vacation pictures on their glitter-GIF-dumpster MySpace pages and memes were about funny cats who couldn’t spell, instead of both being weaponized fashy-virus vectors?
And now we’re talking about entire nations banning internet platforms thanks to ultra-rich crybabies using meme-fluence to buy elections.
. . .man. . . :(
Anyway, yeah Germany, we’re over here on our own community-led open-source infrastructure having a great time, jus’sayin.
I’ve heard your people even have the best memes too!
Germany’s feds better not start a tiktok. :(