Paris Mayor Quits ‘Global Sewer’ X
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced her intention to leave X, formerly known as Twitter, calling the microblogging site “an impressive tool for destroying our democracies.”
In a lengthy statement posted on X, the Socialist mayor told her 1.5 million followers that she held Elon Musk responsible for the changes he’d made since he took over the company in October of last year, albeit without naming him directly, RT reported.
She continued by saying that “controversy, rumor and crude manipulation” are ruling a public debate “fueled by Twitter’s algorithm, where the only thing that counts is the number of ‘likes’,” adding that “facts are irrelevant.”
Labeling the platform a “clear political project,” Hidalgo accused its owner of acting “deliberately to exacerbate tensions and conflicts,” saying it had become a “vast global sewer.”
X has repeatedly come under fire over Musk's changes to the platform from the mainstream media and the political left. According to the Twitter Files, under previous management, the microblogging site had helped block dissemination of a bombshell report alleging influence-peddling by Joe Biden’s family, just three weeks before he was elected president. When Musk arrived, he fired many of Twitter’s former staffers, and since then, the platform, rebranded as X, has been accused of poor content moderation and failing to remove hate speech and disinformation.
The situation became aggravated following the start of the Israel war on Gaza. Earlier the European Commission suspended publicity on X over a spike in disinformation and hate speech on the social media platform. Spokesman Johannes Bahrke said the Commission had “advised services to refrain from advertising at this stage.” The decision came after the US nonprofit organization Media Matters alleged that X had placed adverts for major brands such as Apple, IBM and Oracle next to pro-Nazi content. The report prompted tech giant IBM to halt all advertisements on X.
