Since the recent election of Donald Trump to the White House, many celebrities, political figures and even the media have decided to leave the social network X owned by billionaire Elon Musk, a fervent supporter of Donald Trump. A movement widely followed in the United States, but also on the European continent.
The day after the appointment of Elon Musk as Donald Trump's advisor in charge of “government efficiency”, the media The Guardian announced that he was leaving the Tesla CEO's social network. A decision followed by several other media, including in France. Last week, the regional daily West FranceThen Southwest announced, a few days apart, that they would no longer publish on the platform, “as long as serious guarantees to combat disinformation and in favor of the balance of the debates will not have been made”, specifies the general director of the group Southwest in his press release.
According to an American study, since Elon Musk took the helm of the blue bird social network, Researchers have observed and documented a rise in hateful content and misinformation posts on Twitter.
Celebrities who left X
Among those who desert the social network, we find in particular celebrities like Gigi Hadid, Jim Carrey, or Shonda Rhimes. The novelist Stephen King also left X to migrate to Threads. The singer Barbara Streisand preferred join BlueSky, the social network created by the former boss of Twitter. “From now on, all my comments will be posted on BlueSky,” she said with the hashtag #TwitterExodus.
The movement was followed in France by some local political figuresbut also by the rest of the users. According to figures that X is required to disclose under the Digital Services Act (DSA), the average number of monthly users in the European Union has increased from 111.4 million in the six months to January 2024 to 106 million in the six months to July.
For their part, competitors like Mastodonte, Threads or even Bluesky have seen their number of users explode in recent weeks. On November 20, the Bluesky platform totaled 20 million users, according to its CEO Jack Dorsey, with an increase of one million new users per day since November 15.
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