Dutch organizations, individuals quit X on day of Trump's inauguration

Seventeen organizations and some 4,000 individuals are leaving the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, on Monday. They are joining #DetoX, an initiative by DeGoedeZaak and Stem op een Vrouw. With this action, the social organizations want to make a statement “against online hate, disinformation, and political interference.”

According to the organizations, the appointment of X owner Elon Musk as head of the Department of Government Efficiency under President Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated on Monday, is why many quit the social media platform. “Musk is already seen as a ‘shadow president’ and is interfering in the politics of our neighboring countries. X has become a political project and increasingly threatens our democratic constitutional state,” said director Jurjen van den Berg of DeGoedeZaak. “It is not acceptable that the social debate in the Netherlands is taking place on that platform.”

Both organizations also point out that not everyone is equally free to express themselves on X. “For some groups of people, X is even more toxic, because they have a dartboard on their backs because of their ethnicity, gender, or profession.” In addition, “extreme and hateful voices are amplified because they do well in the algorithm,” said DeGoedeZaak and Stem op een Vrouw. “X and Musk earn a lot from the polarization and hate speech that the platform causes. It is time to break this pattern.”

The initiators want as many politicians, journalists, social organizations, and individuals as possible to turn their backs on X. Devika Partiman, director of Stem op een Vrouw, an organization that fights for gender equality in politics, said that people are holding each other “hostage” on X. “Because many politicians use the platform, journalists feel obliged to stay there - and so organizations and individuals who want to follow and influence the public debate stay there. In this way, you keep each other in a stranglehold where no one wants to leave first.”

In addition to DeGoedeZaak and Stem op een Vrouw themselves, Oxfam Novib, COC, Urgenda, Bits of Freedom, and Terres des Hommes are also leaving X. The campaign is part of the broader movement Make Socials Social Again, which is organizing several events in the coming months “to help the Netherlands in the transition to a faster, safer, and more democratic social debate.”