St. Pauli become first major football club to quit X as Bundesliga club label Elon Musk’s platform ‘a hate machine’

Plenty of debate has been had around X and whether it is a suitable platform for people to digest information and opinions, especially during the recent US election. Bundesliga club St. Pauli have now confirmed they will be stepping away from the site, formerly known as Twitter, as they believe Elon Musk – soon to be part of Donald Trump’s government – may try to interfere in the upcoming German election.

• WHAT ST. PAULI SAID

  An official club statement said: “FC St. Pauli is withdrawing from the social media platform, X. The Boys in Brown joined the platform in 2013 and had 250,000 followers. Since taking over Twitter, as the platform was previously known, Musk has converted X into a hate machine. Racism and conspiracy theories are allowed to spread unchecked and even curated. Insults and threats are seldom sanctioned and are sold as freedom of speech.

  “In addition, following his election victory Donald Trump has picked Musk to head up a new government department. Musk was a major backer of the Trump campaign and also used X for this purpose. It is to be assumed that X will also promote authoritarian, misanthropic and far-right content during the forthcoming German election campaign, this manipulating the public discourse.

  “The account will no longer be used, but the content of the last 11 years will remain online in view of its contemporary historical value. The club would like to thank its members for the critical exchange on what to do about X and calls on its followers on the platform to switch to BlueSky. FC St. Pauli’s English account will also move to BlueSky.”

  THE BIGGER PICTURE

  St. Pauli’s migration may spark an avalanche of clubs making the switch to Bluesky. Not many official sports accounts are yet set up on the platform, but thousands of users are flocking there every day. With so many automated bots and unfiltered content popping up on X, it would not be a surprise to see more big clubs announce that they are leaving the site.

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  WHAT NEXT FOR ST. PAULI?

  The German side have already amassed nearly 12,000 followers on Bluesky. It is likely they will continue to grow with the platform on a day-by-day basis. They will continue life in the Bundesliga, where they sit 16th after 10 games.