The largest newspaper of France, ‘’Le Monde’’, well known across the world, made a tweet on X, announcing that they will no longer post their content there.
‘’Le Monde, has chosen to interrupt the publication of its content on X, as long as this social network operates in this way.’’ This is what they wrote on their X account.
What their editorial said
The announcement, had their editorial attached to it, but the reason for their decision has not been clear. They explained that Donald Trump has created an alliance with Elon Musk and other important figures of the financial world, such us Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, making America seem more like an oligarchy rather than a democracy.
This fact, in combination of Elon Musk’s apparent efforts of promoting his right-wing opinions and intentions on X, contributed to the depart of the newspaper from the platform. They explained, that Elon Musk’s way of operation is not only a danger for democracy and freedom of speech, but a promotion of an extreme right agenda.
How does this affect Le Monde
The question that prevails though is, how does this affect the newspaper and the way they operate in the platform? How does Elon Musk promote his ”extreme right agenda”?
X is known to be a platform with much less censorship that similar ones such as Facebook and Instagram. More than that, it is the only platform that has complete transparency regarding their algorithm. It is public and accessible to everyone.
To add to that, X’s algorithm doesn’t seem to promote the content of right wing newspapers more than the left ones. In reality, if we were to compare data regarding views, likes, comments and reposts, Le Monde’s content seems to perform much better than the equivalent of Le Figaro for example, which is an also well known French newspaper, with a more right political affiliation.
In the table above, we can see the average amount of views, likes, comments and reposts that these two well known newspapers have on X, showing the way their content performs.
Evidently, Le Monde’s content performs much better than Le Figaro’s, showing that the algorithm of X, is not playing any role in promoting certain opinions rather than others.
So why is Le Monde leaving? Why only leave from X and not Meta as well, since Mark Zuckenberg’s name was mentioned as well in their editorial, placing him in the same spectrum as Elon Musk? To add to that, Le Monde has their largest audience on X, counting 11million followers, double than the followers they have on Facebook, which is 5million, and four times bigger that their Instagram audiece, with only 2,3 million followers. So, is a personal political affiliation enough for a publication of its size to make such a decision?
How people reacted on X
While Le Monde, is inviting their journalists to follow their lead, and consequently their X readers as well, their departure post did not have the reaction expected.
Many of the users, responded incorporating memes in their comments, such as the above, in order to criticize Le Monde’s decision. The messages in the memes above are translated below:
‘’Stop contradicting me or I quit X’’
‘’Mainstream Medias 1900–2024. We lied and cheated until the end’’
‘’Get lost and stop pissing us off’’
Others, opted for more verbalized reactions:
The translation can be found once again below:
‘’Oh damn, X has messed up so badly that even le Monde is forced to get involved at the last minute to try to train the apprentice dictators. Who cares, Le Monde, your propaganda articles are paid for anyway so we don’t click on them’’
‘’X has worked this way since the takeover by Elon Musk, yet that hasn’t stopped you from paying a lot for a certification supposed to guarantee your credibility when you have none. Beautiful irony, no?’’
‘’It’s a space where misinformation is rampant…so we leave and give them free reign.’’
These are some of the most common reaction comments under their post. Since their post was posted on the 20th of January, the comments have gone so out of hand, that Le Monde apparently felt forced to turn them off.
Le Monde’s reaction
For now, if anyone would like to add a comment on their post, they will get this message:
After advocating fiercely against restrictions on freedom of speech and democracy, this reaction seems to go against what Le Monde so passionately argued.
A possible answer to why Le Monde quit X
And the question still remains. Elon Musk has been the owner of X for some time now, and Donald Trump has been reelected for some time too. So what could the connection be between their departure and Donald Trump’s inauguration being on the same day?
While this publication is still trying to get in touch with Le Monde’s journalists to get on the bottom of this, there is one thing that aligns with their emphasis on ‘’extreme-right actions by Elon Musk’’.
This image has been circling the internet since Donald Trump’s inauguration, accompanied by a video, showing Elon Musk thanking his supporters, while making the Nazi salute.
Many are claiming that this gesture goes to show where the richest man in the world stands, and thus his platform too. Elon Musk though, replied to these claims but stating: “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.”. Could this be the gesture though that pushed Le Monde over the edge?
What the public in France thinks
After asking the opinion from the citizens of France though, the reactions were not at aligned with the comments on X. People were very much pleased and even supported the decision of quitting X.
Some even mentioned that after the Nazi gesture they saw from Elon Musk, Le Monde’s decision is completely justified. At the same time, they don’t think that this action will backfire for Le Monde, since most of them, seem to read the news directly from Le Monde’s site, or through its printed format.
Although, some mentioned that they fear that, this action will simply leave space for the more right-winged publications to influence and inform X’s French audience, without Le Monde being there to counter balance them.
An on going investigating
For now, this publication will not stop, until they get a direct response from Le Monde’s journalists, stating and explaining, the exact reasons for this decision.
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The raw interviews can be found bellow:
