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.

  • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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    11 days ago

    Leave it and…

    Leave it and…

    block that steaming pile of garbage.

    It’s critical to make this asshat’s soapbox irrelevant.

    • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      That’s a cartoon waiting to happen. Musk jumping up and down on his dilapidated soapbox, in the center of X plaza, surrounded only by his bots. It’s the glorious final stage of the echo chamber.

      • Zement@feddit.nl
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        9 days ago

        Like: Vacation in SA = Support butchering of Journalists.

        It’s really that easy. Give money to evil people (on purpose knowingly)… support evil shit.

        Consumersnhave some responsibility too. Everything else is deflection and: Mimimimi

        Like Nestle… avoid their products, kill the company. “But I like Nesquick”… Alright, eat Nesquick kill some Chocolate Framers for it, but be aware what you do.

        • Omnipitaph@reddthat.com
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          3 hours ago

          Are you really using the same arguments as big coal?

          “You, the consumer, are the problem. Not us, no”, like consumers are killing the chocolate farmers. No, the people killing the chocolate farmers are killing the chocolate farmers. If you drive a car in the USA, you aren’t responsible for the 100 million tons of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere, or the millions of gallons of crude oil spilled into the ocean— companies like Exon and Shell are. You merely live in a country where automobile companies lobbied hard for cities to be built dependent on cars.

          You had no say in that, just like you have no say in what produce is at your supermarket, or what baby formula, or what your kids favorite drink is going to be.

          That’s like saying, “if you eat bannanas you endorse the murder and rape of south americans and the colonization of hawaii”. Shits just not true.

          • Zement@feddit.nl
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            2 hours ago

            Why is it not true? Are you freezing/starving when you can’t eat bananas? No. Are we sometimes forced to trade with criminals? Yes.

            Following your argument, everything is legal or at least ethically “cleaned” if you pay for it. Getting annoyed for feeling responsibility is a typical reaction, I don’t blame you.

            But let me take your argument to 11: Prostitution of Minors. Simple. In your argument the customer has done nothing wrong. Even if new reports point out this specific brothel does it, your argument would be: “Nah it’s okay if it operates” Illegal stuff isn’t Illegal if you make Millions with it and pay the right friends. Same with Toxic additives to foods, lead paint, etc… protest with your wallet. Prostitution is a extreme example, but exploiting illegals for shit jobs isn’t much different, and here it even starts with your favorite restaurant treating their employees like shit. (I wouldn’t eat there any more, no matter how tasty? I think that’s the difference between our views)

            I think your argument is too short sighted. While protesting by boycott works, just doing nothing and pissing on others on the Internet, won’t do shit.

        • .Donuts@lemmy.world
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          9 days ago

          Everything else is deflection and: Mimimimi

          I always chuckle when I see this in the wild. For non-Germans: mimimi is mocking what someone said, like they are whining, for instance if they proclaim something is unfair.

  • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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    11 days ago

    Please rest of the world - SHUN Musk and to whatever degree you can, also Trump, exactly like this. Their egos can’t handle it, and your efforts to de-legitimize them both may be one of our most effective weapons to limit the damage they do.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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      9 days ago

      When they ask why, tell them “Because you’re friggin weird and we’ve had enough.” Lol

      This is the case with so many world leaders. If nobody accepted their money, and everyone just pointed, laughed, rolled their eyes, and moved on whenever they opened their mouths, they’d instantly cease to have power over world events.

      If only…

  • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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    9 days ago

    Remember when “social media” was our friends posting vacation pictures on their glitter-GIF-dumpster MySpace pages and memes were about funny cats who couldn’t spell, instead of both being weaponized fashy-virus vectors?

    And now we’re talking about entire nations banning internet platforms thanks to ultra-rich crybabies using meme-fluence to buy elections.

    . . .man. . . :(

    Anyway, yeah Germany, we’re over here on our own community-led open-source infrastructure having a great time, jus’sayin.

    I’ve heard your people even have the best memes too!

    Germany’s feds better not start a tiktok. :(

    • cows_are_underrated@feddit.org
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      9 days ago

      Germany’s feds better not start a tiktok. :(

      Sorry to inform you, but this has already happened. Some police departments have an account and do ultra cringe marketing on there. Than we have our Nazi party AfD spitting bullshit and hatred and then other parties who also do some cringe shit.

    • nebulaone@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Germany’s feds better not start a tiktok. :(

      The german police already has. It is very cringe, as expected.

      Edit: And I’m pretty sure a lot of political parties are on there as well. I dont have tiktok though, so idk.

  • PedroMaldonado@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    Godammit, elon. All you had to do was be cool. Coast on that "visionary’ crap and keep on winning life. But, no. You are just and asshole. Jerk.

    • Zement@feddit.nl
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      9 days ago

      Lazyness. Incompetence. Lack of know. Lack of Care.

      The same shit everywhere.

    • cows_are_underrated@feddit.org
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      9 days ago

      We can also ban the far right AfD. The law allows it and almost everyone who knows enough about the German law supports it saying that it has good chances to be successful, but still nothing happens. It has been over one year since we got probably the biggest protests since the reunification of Germany, they happened after reports of members of the AfD being part of a meeting where they planned mass deportations, and no political party gave a damn about it.

      • riodoro1@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        It’s almost as if the financial elite doesn’t rally care about freedom and all that democracy bullshit.

  • Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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    9 days ago

    “Right wing populist content”

    Just call it what it is: lying to stir up hatred.

  • atro_city@fedia.io
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    11 days ago

    I fear where they are going to go… they probably have a governmental Mastodon instance, but will go to Bluesky or Threads. They will have learned next to nothing from the experience, I bet.

  • Nougat@fedia.io
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    11 days ago

    Makes sense, since you know Musk can and will corrupt what you say on his platform.

  • affiliate@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    this is just like what mark zuckerberg said about all of europe having “too much censorship” and “making innovation impossible”. but i guess if germany really cared about being unbiased they would have moved all their institutions to texas by now or something.

      • affiliate@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        they innovate new ways of performing regulatory capture and new ways of monopolizing industries. rest assured that this is all a good thing somehow

        • Baguette@lemm.ee
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          9 days ago

          And are we sure these monopolies are located in germany and not say the US?

          • affiliate@lemmy.world
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            9 days ago

            no the monopolies are all in the US as evidenced by mark zuckerberg, in his infinite wisdom, saying that “europe makes it impossible to innovate anything there”