AIn view of the unclear development on Twitter after the takeover by US billionaire Elon Musk, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) is considering withdrawing from the online platform. “The Federal Chancellor and the Federal Press Office are taking a very close look at the development of Twitter since it was taken over by Elon Musk,” government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told the editorial network Germany. In doing so, a balance is struck “between the development of the platform on the one hand and possible alternatives that can be used instead on the other”.
“We have the task of providing broad information about the work of the federal government and want to use as many channels as possible to reach users where they get information anyway,” said Hebestreit in the RND podcast “Geyer & Niesmann”. Twitter is a path established by the previous government, with which Scholz can reach around 600,000 and the government spokesman around 100,000 followers.
It would have been “very short” to “give up this information channel immediately without having an alternative,” Hebestreit continued. “Nevertheless, we cannot turn a blind eye to problematic developments on this network that continue to blossom.”
Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion at the end of October. He then fired not only the management, but also around half of his 7,500 employees. In addition, the Tesla founder caused confusion with repeated announcements about, among other things, the approval of users and the verification of accounts. Critics fear that Musk could drastically limit the fight against the spread of hate speech and fake news on Twitter.
Hebestreit excludes Tiktok account for Chancellor
As a consequence, more and more previous users are turning away from the short message service. Earlier this week, for example, the Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, Stephan Weil (SPD), deleted his account. As a reason, he explained: “A lack of controls and verifications on Twitter are increasingly leading to the mass spread of hate and hate speech, misinformation and conspiracy tales.”
Chancellor Scholz is the first tweeting Chancellor who, in addition to the speaker and government profile, also has a personal account on the platform. However, according to Hebestreit, the news is not written by himself, but by a team in the Federal Press Office.
On the other hand, no channel will be set up for Scholz on the Tiktok video clip platform, Hebestreit explained. A corresponding decision has already been made. According to the government spokesman, among other things, there was an audit note from the Federal Press Office, “which clearly said: We should think twice about whether we as the German federal government want to be present on a Chinese platform”. That convinced him not to do it, said the government spokesman.
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