Following the reelection of Donald Trump as president of the United States and the notable influence that Elon Musk played through his ownership of Twitter, now known as X, several media organizations in the West have closed their accounts on the social media app citing various reasons. However, major newspapers in Nigeria have no plans to join their Western counterparts in this move. PAUL OMOROGBE writes:
SHORTLY after the United States election was won and lost, the winner being the Republican candidate, Donald Trump and the loser, Kamala Harris of the Democratic Party, the Guardian of UK announced their departure from the microblogging website called X (formerly Twitter). Their announcement came on November 13, 2024, barely a week after the November 5 elections that ushered in the recently inaugurated 47th president of the US.
In its announcement, the 204 year-old British newspaper, said: “We wanted to let readers know that we will no longer post on any official Guardian editorial accounts on the social media site X (formerly Twitter). We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our journalism elsewhere.
“This is something we have been considering for a while given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism. The US presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.
“X users will still be able to share our articles, and the nature of live news reporting means we will still occasionally embed content from X within our article pages. Our reporters will also be able to carry on using the site for news-gathering purposes, just as they use other social networks in which we do not officially engage.
The newspaper added: “Social media can be an important tool for news organisations and help us to reach new audiences but, at this point, X now plays a diminished role in promoting our work.”
The exit of The Guardian was quickly followed by a number of newspapers in other European countries including Dagens Nyheter (Sweden), La Vanguardia (Spain), Ouest-France and Sud-Ouest (both in France).
Then, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has announced that it will stop publishing content on Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, from January 20, 2025, when Donald Trump officially became president of the US.
The organisation stated that it can “no longer ethically participate in a social network that its owner has transformed into a machine of disinformation and propaganda.”
The EFJ is the largest organisation of journalists in Europe, representing over 295,000 journalists in 44 countries has announced that it will stop posting content on X.
The company’s general secretary Ricardo Gutiérrez stated: “After the US elections, EFJ pointed out the threat to democracy and freedom of expression posed by the cooperation between the president of the most powerful country in the world, Donald J. Trump, and the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, who is also the owner of social network X and has been appointed to lead a “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) when Donald J. Trump takes office as president on January 20, 2025.”
The president of EFJ, Maja Sever said, “We cannot continue to participate in the social network feed of a man who proclaims the death of the media and therefore of journalists.
“The social media site X has become the preferred vector for conspiracy theories, racism, far-right ideas and misogynistic rhetoric. X is a platform that no longer serves the public interest at all, but the special ideological and financial interests of its owner and his political allies.”
Many of the exiters have found safe haven in another social media site known as Bluesky.
According to the digital market intelligence company Similarweb, the number of daily active US users on X has dropped by 8.4% since early October 2024, from 32.3 million to 29.6 million.
Reports say the number of Bluesky users has risen by 1,064%, from 254,500 to roughly 2.7 million since October 2024.
However, is this phenomenon something Nigerian media houses will partake of? Findings by Nigerian Tribune are that no major media organization within Nigeria will toe the line of their European counterparts.
Sources at The Punch Newspapers said that instead of leaving, the national daily has plans of bolstering its presence on the social media platform. Punch, currently with 6.9 million followers has the largest following of a national daily newspaper on X.
At Vanguard Newspaper, a source told Nigerian Tribune that “there is nothing like that on the agenda” when it comes to closing its account on X for whatever reason. Vanguard currently has 4.9 million followers on X.
Editor of The Guardian Newspaper in Nigeria, Femi Adekoya, responding to the question of leaving X, said: “The reasons for the organisations exiting vary from one another. Some did it in protest against Musk. Do we share their grievances? Not sure.
“We still have some market that seeks information from X. Being there can help with information access and address misinformation.”
Taiwo George, Online Editor for Daily Trust, another national newspaper with a huge following in Northern Nigeria, said that for the media house, “there is no attempt whatsoever to exit X.”
He added that “some of these media organisations (leaving X) refer to the West.
“Personally, I have been monitoring the trend since the last US election and the role the owner of X played in influencing, directly or indirectly, the election of Donald Trump. And again, we also saw a tradition where leading social media platforms, or even traditional media, were leaning towards Donald Trump, perhaps because of the trend of information they had at the point in time. Jeff Bezos had issues with the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, where the media was being used as a tool to promote Trump. And of course, we saw Zuckerberg contributing to Trump’s campaign, and even attending the inauguration.
“So, there’s been a lot of back and forth around the elections.”
He reiterated: “For we at Daily Trust, as of this moment, there is no plan whatsoever to quit X. Rather, we want to even expand our reach on Twitter. Reason being that we found out that Nigerians consume information from this particular medium.”
Speaking to the issue of fake news, he said: “It’s a big challenge, but there are ways through which we try to enlighten, educate, and sensitise our readers and the audience. We have a fact-check desk and we do it (fact-checking) from time to time. Then we also put up disclaimers.
“So, yes, the challenge has been there. But for me, I see this, personally, in my own view, being driven by Western influence or sentiment.”
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The power of X
Cristian Perez, writing for the University of Southern California School of Communication and Journalism in 2017 during Trump’s first tenure, noted the following about the power of X:
“Donald Trump’s use of Twitter reveals how truly powerful modern technology and social platforms can be. Since the start of his campaign, his use of Twitter has not only increased news coverage of his campaign and activities, but has also had tangible effects both domestically and internationally.
“Since taking office two of President Trump’s tweets had especially notable effects—in December, after Tweeting about the costs of Boeing’s Air Force One project, the company’s stock dropped about $2 a share.
“Something quite similar happened with Lockheed Martin, the firm which produces fighter jets, missiles and other technology for the U.S. Military. After the President tweeted: “Based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have asked Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet!,” Lockheed stock dropped about two percent, meaning a $1.2 billion drop in the company’s market value.
“These two examples are noteworthy because they provide tangible proof that thoughts shared on social media platforms like Twitter can have real, immediate effects. Though these are economic in nature, they are by no means the limit of the effects of Twitter.”
Ebenezer Obadare, in his article for the Council on Foreign Relations, stated: “Nigerian authorities’ decision in June 2021 to ban Twitter from operating in the country “indefinitely” raised Nigerians’ hackles and caused no little consternation across the country and its vast diaspora, particularly its digital constituency. On the whole, Nigerians were skeptical of the authorities’ justification that the ban was necessitated by a need to curtail “the unceasing use of the platform by some unscrupulous elements for subversive purposes and criminal activities.” At the time, the U.S. government had joined other key Western countries to condemn the ban and “support the fundamental human right of free expression and access to information as a pillar of democracy in Nigeria.”
Following the call to journalists, especially those covering climate change in Europe, to exit from X just like the organization, EFJ, Lyse Mauvis a French journalist, shared her response with Nigerian Tribune: “As a freelance journalist long based in the MENA region, many of my sources are still on Twitter. Although I am now also on platforms like Bluesky, I would never have been able to follow events ongoing in Syria this closely had I left Twitter.
“I’m bringing this up to say people have their reasons for staying, and some of these are valid. Like in climate politics, I think we should avoid moralising and blaming people for doing things ‘badly’ when there are no real alternatives (for example, stigmatising rural communities for using cars when there are no public transport). I hope you understand the parallel I’m making: we shouldn’t equate staying on Twitter with supporting fascism, while dismissing peoples’ motivations for making that choice.”
