“The main reason for the decision is that, according to the defense ministry’s assessment, the objective exchange of arguments is becoming increasingly difficult,” the ministry said in a statement announcing its exit from X.
The defense ministry’s move will spark debate within the German government over whether all institutions should cease posting on X.
“It's a difficult balance to strike,” a spokesperson for the chancellery told reporters in Berlin. “The defense ministry has taken its position, but we are sticking to the platform for the time being, which is certainly not without controversy.”
A number of other celebrities and institutions have already ditched X, but Scholz posted on the site on Tuesday and the leader of the fiscally conservative Free Democrats, ex-Finance Minister Christian Lindner, has also sought out Musk’s personal support on X.
More than 60 German universities and research institutions announced they were leaving the platform last week due to increasing radicalization of the discourse on the site.
That decision came in the immediate wake of Musk’s livestreamed chat with AfD co-leader Weidel, in which she said: “We have this insane, woke-ish, socialist, leftist agenda in our educational system. So, the young people, they don’t learn anything in school, university … They just learn about gender studies.” Musk replied: “It sounds like the woke mind virus has infected Germany quite badly.”
Purplebuzz on January 15th, 2025 at 19:17 UTC »
To be fair his ties to Russia and substance abuse make him a tremendous security threat to all western nations.
Fun-Chemist-2286 on January 15th, 2025 at 18:37 UTC »
Everyone should leave X, and meta too
guyoffthegrid on January 15th, 2025 at 18:22 UTC »
TL;DR:
The German defense ministry and the Bundeswehr national army will suspend their accounts on Elon Musk’s social media platform X, citing an inability to have factual debate on the site.
Back in December, billionaire entrepreneur Musk endorsed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in a post on X and since then has used the social media platform he bought in 2022 to berate mainstream German politicians, calling center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz a “fool” and touting the AfD as the only force that can “save” the country.