German cult club St Pauli quits ‘toxic’ X to switch to Bluesky platform

November 15 – German club St. Pauli has announced it is leaving social media platform X, saying it has become a “hate machine” that could influence upcoming German elections.

The Hamburg club has become the first major outfit and the first Bundesliga club to depart the platform formerly called Twitter and owned by far-right billionaire Elon Musk. St Pauli has made the switch to Bluesky, a social media platform enjoying a major surge in new users following the US elections. The left-leaning cult football club also encouraged its followers to sign up to Bluesky.

“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,” said St. Pauli said in a statement.

“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.”

“In addition, after his election victory, Donald Trump announced that he would make Musk the head of a newly created agency. Musk had already actively supported Trump during the election campaign, also with the help of X. It can be assumed that X will also promote authoritarian, misanthropic and right-wing extremist content in the federal election campaign and thus manipulate public discourse.”

By Wednesday evening, St Pauli’s account on Bluesky counted just under 10,000 followers. The platform has crossed the mark of 15 million users. The New York Times wrote that since the US elections Bluesky has added one million users. The Guardian said that it will no longer post on X, calling it “toxic media platform”.