German football club St Pauli quits X accusing Elon Musk of turning website 'into a hate machine'

German football club St Pauli has decided to abandon social medial platform X, formerly known as Twitter, accusing the Elon Musk-owned website of becoming a “hate machine” that could influence upcoming elections in the country. The left-leaning club based in Hamburg that currently competes in the Bundesliga added that it is urging its 250,000 followers on X to switch to Bluesky, a rival social media platform created by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

“The reason for the withdrawal: owner Elon Musk has turned a room for debate into an amplifier of hate that can also influence the German federal election campaign,” St. Pauli said in a statement on its website. “Since Musk took over Twitter … he has turned X into a hate machine. Racism and conspiracy theories spread unhindered or are even curated. Insults and threats are barely sanctioned and sold as supposed freedom of expression.”

St. Pauli’s statement was illustrated by a photo of a sticker showing a fist smashing a swastika, beside the club’s emblem and a slogan saying its fans are against right-wing politics.

St. Pauli noted that Musk supported Donald Trump during the US presidential election “with the help of X,” and that “it can be assumed that X will also promote authoritarian, misanthropic and right-wing extremist content in the (German) federal election campaign and thus manipulate public discourse.”

FC St. Pauli will no longer post on X. Our statement on why we are withdrawing can be found here:https://t.co/opQT3as08w

We're moving to BlueSky and you are all welcome to join us. We're done here.#fcsp #musk

— FC St. Pauli English (@fcstpauli_EN) November 14, 2024

Germany looks set to hold early parliamentary elections on 23 February after Chancellor Olaf Scholz last week fired Finance Minister Christian Lindner, ending a fractious alliance between three political parties.

St. Pauli is the first German top-level club to say it is leaving X following the US election result. British newspaper The Guardian said Wednesday it would no longer post content on the network, describing it as a “toxic media platform.”

Bluesky on Wednesday said its total users had surged to 15 million, up from roughly 13 million at the end of October.

St. Pauli said it would leave its content from the past 11 years on X “as it has historical value” but won’t make any new posts.

With AP inputs