Following The Guardian, La Vanguardia Leaves X
Facts
- Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, which has about 1.3M followers on X (formerly Twitter), announced Thursday that it will no longer be posting content on the Elon Musk-owned social media platform, calling it a 'disinformation network.'[1][2]
- Also in its announcement, which came a day after British newspaper The Guardian announced the same, La Vanguardia called X a platform of 'conspiracy theories and disinformation.'[3][4]
- The Guardian, with over 80 accounts and about 27M followers, alleged that X promotes 'far-right conspiracy theories and racism.' However, it said users can still post its content on X and its reporters can still use it for gathering news.[5][6]
- Responding to The Guardian's boycott, Musk claimed that the outlet was a 'dying publication' and a 'laboriously vile propaganda machine.'[7][8]
- This comes as the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism's 2024 reports that 11% of adult respondents said they had used X for news in the preceding week.[9][10]
Sources: [1]Al Jazeera, [2]X (a), [3]Firstpost, [4]La Vanguardia, [5]Guardian (a), [6]Guardian (b), [7]X (b), [8]X (c), [9]reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk and [10]Press Gazette.
Narratives
- Left narrative, as provided by The Daily Beast and Guardian. Under Musk, there's been a dangerous rise in racism, fake news, and far-right ideology on X. These boycotts show news outlets and users can take a stand against a platform that's certain to continue promoting the harmful MAGA agenda with Trump's return to the White House. There are better, more ethical alternatives to X everyone can use.
- Right narrative, as provided by The Telegraph and GB News. These boycotts, made in embarrassing fits of rage, prove the point that left-leaning media outlets oppose freedom of speech. As these woke outlets no longer bother to disguise their far-left agenda and left-wing activists continue throwing tantrums over having to face different opinions, X will continue to be a public square for everyone.