German institutions depart X, a day after Musk's Weidel talk – DW – 01/10/2025
www.dw.com
More than 60 German and Austrian academic organizations say they will leave the messaging platform X owned by Elon Musk. The German government has also voiced fears that the platform is warping political discourse.

Summary

Over 60 German and Austrian universities and research institutions announced their exit from Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter), citing the platform’s promotion of right-wing populist content and its incompatibility with democratic and scientific values.

This follows Germany’s Federal Court of Justice and trade unions leaving the platform.

The German government is also debating a withdrawal, expressing concerns over X’s polarizing effect on political discourse.

The departure comes after Musk’s public support for Germany’s far-right AfD party and a live talk with its leader Alice Weidel ahead of upcoming elections.

  • rhel@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    13·
    15 hours ago

    Yep, Germany in general has a pretty active open source community, so there are already a lot of alternatives out there. Unfortunately, most IT people are bad at marketing, which is why hardly anyone knows about these alternatives.

    • NuclearDolphin@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      8 hours ago

      Unfortunately, most IT people are bad at marketing, which is why hardly anyone knows about these alternatives.

      Developers may be bad at naming shit, but no one knows about alternatives because FOSS projects don’t have marketing money, not because developers are bad at getting the word out.