The regional daily affirms this Tuesday, November 19 that it wants to defend its “values” against “anti-social networks”. “La Vanguardia” in Spain and “The Guardian” in the United Kingdom had already announced that they were distancing themselves from Elon Musk's platform.
The question arises in all editorial offices, including in France, in the face of the practices on the platform of the now Trumpist Elon Musk. West France this Tuesday, November 19, became the first media in France, and the third in Europe, to announce suspension “any publication on all of its X accounts (ex-Twitter)”. This decision is “definitive” if the conditions of use of the network “remain the same as today”specifies the newspaper Liberation. In a press release and on its own site, the largest French-speaking regional daily says “attached to its independence, to democratic values, to peaceful debate, to the fight against disinformation and harassment, thus takes a stand against the lack of regulation and moderation of the platform”.
The group – which claims “each month more than 21 million readers in paper or digital version” – declares that it wants to reaffirm its “values” facing the “anti-social networks”, especially the one in the hands of Elon Musk. “In the current state of things, it seems neither judicious nor appropriate to be active there, as long as serious guarantees are not taken in the face of disinformation, harassment and violence,” writes the media. “The presence of West France on the platform, which until now was based only on the fierce desire to speak clearly and reliably in the midst of this tumult, unfortunately can no longer resist the tension of the algorithm.”
“Rules of the game now biased”
“How were we able to transform debate tools which could be so useful to democracy, into infernal machines ignoring the rules of law and ethics? Why this impunity? How can we accept that the Internet is such a lawless zone? writes the chairman of the board of West France, François-Xavier Lefranc. The media announces, however, that it will continue to integrate X publications into its articles in the case of original and reliable information.
Asked by Liberation on the possible economic consequences of this suspension, the newspaper states that “traffic on [pour Ouest-France] is quite weak. “Especially since we had already reduced the number of publications. However, specifies the media, efforts linked to X will be redeployed on other platforms.” As on Bluesky, a direct competitor to X.
The daily had already distinguished itself on October 27, 2023 by disconnecting its publications on this platform “as a sign of protest against the lack of moderation and regulation”. Since then, the accounts of the different editions of West France were only marginally supplied. “The general account thus went from 200 daily tweets to around twenty tweets per week.”
The movement away from Elon Musk's platform seems to be more global. The Spanish daily The Vanguard announced on November 14 that it would no longer publish content on “a network of disinformation”, to return “messages that violate human rights go viral”.
The day before, it was the British newspaper The Guardian who announced that he was stopping publishing on “the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform”, owned by Elon Musk. “We believe that the benefits of our presence on X are now outweighed by the drawbacks and that resources could be better used to promote our journalism elsewhere,” concluded the British media.
Update at 6:13 p.m., Ouest-France suspends its publications on X “permanently” if the conditions of use of the network “remain the same as today”.
