Four German Foundations Have Left X/Twitter, Calling It a “Threat to Social Cohesion and Our Democratic Order”

The Mercator Foundation, along with three other German foundations, has announced its decision to leave X/Twitter, calling the platform “a threat to social cohesion and our democratic order.”

Exterior of the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco on January 19, 2023, by Frank Schulenburg, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0

In a statement released on January 31, the Mercator Foundation, the Robert Bosch Foundation, the Volkswagen Foundation and the Zeit Foundation Bucerius denounced the spread of hate speech and disinformation on X/Twitter since Elon Musk took over the company in 2022:

“We stand for an open, democratic society, for personal freedom and human dignity, for fact-based information and constructive dialogue,” the press release reads. “Since the takeover by Elon Musk, this value system has collapsed in our view on X/Twitter. We cannot tolerate hate speech and misinformation, the spread of extremist propaganda and the incitement against minorities. Critical voices are arbitrarily suppressed or flooded with threats by troll and bot networks.

“The spread of anti-Semitic statements by Elon Musk and the opening of a procedure by the EU Commission against Twitter/X for the dissemination of illegal content have strengthened us in our decision. With our concerted action, we invite other foundations to follow our example. We consider X/Twitter to be a threat to social cohesion and our democratic order.”

The Mercator Foundation (German: Stiftung Mercator) is a private non-profit organisation established by the retail entrepreneur Karl Schmidt from Duisburg in the late 1990s and is named after the cartographer and humanist Gerhard Mercator. It promotes comprehensive education and equal opportunities, understanding and exchange between people of different cultures, the idea of a unified Europe, the peaceful coexistence of people from different backgrounds, beliefs, and social conditions, and environmental protection.

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