Published: 10:34 p.m. – Modified: 10:40 p.m. by Dolorès CHARLES
Social Networks
Credit : Pixabay
Since the announcement of the daily Ouest-France to leave X, many politicians and other organizations have followed and migrated to another social network, notably Bluesky. A look back at the group's motivations with Sébastien Grosmaître, one of the editors-in-chief.
The X network (formerly Twitter) has it become an unwanted or even toxic platform? Since the departure of the Ouest-France Group from Elon Musk's social network on November 19, other media have done the same in Europe: the Guardian in the United Kingdom; La Vanguardia in Spain; the Dagens Nyheter in Sweden, and also South-West in France.
Also deputies like the Brazilian Claudia Rouaux (3rd Circo), associations like Accoord Nantes, organizations like Greenpeace, but also football clubs, the National Syndicate of Free Radios, or national or local personalities like the Breton meteorologist, Steven Tual of “Temps Breton” etc.
Some examples, all tired of hateful and threatening tweets.
Did the daily expect to be so followed?
For Sébastien Grosmaître, one of the editors-in-chief of Ouest-France, the daily does not “wasn't looking for the buzz effect, but we received congratulations from our entire community and beyond, a lot of media feedback at national and international level. Afterwards there were some criticisms but they were on the network…
“On BlueSky there is a more regulated practice of very aggressive posts”
We migrated to the BlueSky platform, and we have seen a lot of migrations since, both of politicians and journalists. There was a ripple effect. So why BlueSky because this network further moderates the practice of aggressive raids, and leaves the possibility of deleting unwanted comments that can be put forward on X… There is a more regulated practice of all very aggressive posts.”
Credit : Dolores Charles
The daily motivated its departure by a crucial lack of moderation, and the fact that this network is owned by a certain Elon Musk, close to the elected American president Donald Trump.
But can we fight populism by deserting X? “Oui, for Sébastien Grosmaître, because since its takeover by billionaire Elon Musk, X has become a very toxic, completely deregulated social network. Without moderation, there is no hunting for false conspiracy accounts. It was (or is) become a boulevard of hateful excesses…
“An unequal fight”
We make a point of trying to publish verified information. The fact is that we did it in a ring, where the referee himself accepted all the low blows, the insults, the threats and became the trainer of what became our opponent, that is to say the comments conspiracists. We found that the dice were loaded, and that the fight had become completely unequal.”
This departure was the result of long discussions within Western daily newspapers. “Already a year ago, we had a publications strike: we went from 200 publications per day to almost twenty per week. We had long debates to say that in the end, we had to remain consistent with our values and our values no longer allowed us to stay on this X network.
A network on which we can debate calmly
In any case, we migrated on BlueSky where there is a tone that we wanted to be more relaxed. But above all, we are in a more peaceful context. We want to highlight the ability to be able to have peaceful debates, which can be contradictory, but in which we still have the possibility of hearing and listening to each other. And in our society, that’s very important.”
Today there is the hashtag #QuitterX which is proposed on… Twitter.
Other alternative networks are possible, notably Bluesky but also Thread which is gaining popularity with this wave of departures.
