Swiss public broadcasters withdraw from X/Twitter

French-language RTS said that since X/Twitter was taken over by Elon Musk it no longer corresponded to the company’s journalistic values. Keystone

Swiss public broadcasters RTS and SRF are drastically reducing their communications via the social network X (formerly Twitter).

French-language RTS said that since X was taken over by billionaire Elon Musk in 2022 it no longer corresponded to the company’s journalistic values.

“Dialogue with our followers is no longer possible [on X], because they are being held hostage by trolls and bots and subjected to hate campaigns and defamation,” RTS spokesman Marco Ferrara told the Swiss News Agency Keystone-ATS on Friday.

The withdrawal is scheduled to take place over the next few months. RTS currently manages around 15 accounts on the platform. “We will maintain a presence with the @RadioTeleSuisse corporate account to keep an eye on things and be able to intervene, for example in the event of our identity being stolen,” he added.

RTS will continue to offer its information via its own platforms, such as the RTS Info news app. For its corporate communications, it will rely on its rts.ch website and LinkedIn.

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On Thursday, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC), which includes RTS and its German-language counterpart SRF and which is also SWI swissinfo.ch’s parent company, announced that from mid-May it would be communicating on only two channels on X, as opposed to the current 13.

Disinformation and hatred

Lately, SRF has not really been reaching its target audience on the majority of its X channels, a spokeswoman explained. It is “constantly observing which social media platforms the German-speaking Swiss population uses and how users interact with and consume SRF content”, she added, adding that SBC wants to make efficient use of the resources available.

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The SRF 2024 corporate strategy also calls for SRF to focus on its own digital platforms, such as the SRF news app, and to strengthen its content. From mid-May, SRF will operate only the SRF news channel and the SRF corporate channel. SRF’s regional newspapers and SRF Meteo bid farewell to their followers on Thursday on X.

Since its takeover by Elon Musk in October 2022, X has drastically reduced its content moderation resources. This has contributed to an explosion in messages of disinformation, violence and hatred.

Translated from French by DeepL/ts

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