Politico: Europeans Are Leaving Social Network X in droves

According to a new report published this week by billionaire Elon Musk's social network X, European users are abandoning his platform in droves.

The Gaze reports on this with reference to Politico.

According to the latest data, which the company was obliged to publish in order to comply with the main technological legislation of the European Union - the Digital Services Act - the social network has faced a sharp decline in the number of users in Europe.

Since August last year, the platform has lost 11 million European users, with the largest outflows recorded in France (2.7 million), Poland (1.8 million) and Germany (1.3 million). In Lithuania and Luxembourg, the number of users decreased by a quarter.

Today, the platform has about 95 million users in Europe, which means a decrease of 10.5% over the past six months, compared to 105 million last year.

The platform has been abandoned by many users who left it after its acquisition by Elon Musk. These include, for example, the legendary writer Stephen King, the University of Leeds, the British newspaper The Guardian, and in January, the official account of the city of Paris left the platform.

Since 2023, the European Commission has been investigating whether X has been complying with EU requirements to combat illegal content and fake news. Last July, the platform was accused of breaking the law but has not yet been punished.

Musk's electric car company Tesla has also suffered a blow in Europe in recent months, with sales falling by more than 50% in January and February this year.

Elon Musk acquired X, then known as Twitter, in 2022. His changes to the platform's rules and encouragement of right-wing political movements in the US and Europe have drawn criticism that they have increased the spread of disinformation and hate speech.

In January, Spanish Labour Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Diaz left the social media platform X over the billionaire's behaviour during the inauguration of US President Donald Trump. The same month, the German Federal Ministry of Defence announced that it was also leaving X.

The famous writer, Stephen King, said he was leaving X because of the toxicity of the platform itself.

As The Gaze reported earlier, in February, the European Union said it would accelerate its investigation into Elon Musk's social network X over suspected violations of the Digital Services Act.