Why the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency is leaving Twitter

The Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency will no longer be represented on X/Twitter in the future. (Source: ADS)

All people in Germany enjoy protection against discrimination, regardless of their ethnic origin, religion or belief, sexual identity, gender, age or disability – one of the cornerstones of our basic law, fair coexistence and the basic democratic order.

The Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency (ADS) is a contact point to help those affected by discrimination. This could also be reached via the platform

The anti-discrimination agency announced this in a posting today and commented comprehensively on the motives behind the decision.

ADS leaves X/Twitter: allegations against Musk

The central break in the platform for ADS is said to have occurred with the Twitter takeover by Elon Musk. Since then, hate speech and disinformation have increased on Twitter and right-wing extremist accounts have been reactivated.

It is questionable for the anti-discrimination agency which target groups can still be reached on X under these circumstances. In addition, the number of hate comments has increased so massively that combating them can only be done with a lot of human resources. The posting leaves it open whether this can still be justified with tax money.

In addition, according to the ADS, so-called troll factories that spread pro-Russian propaganda have bought the blue verification ticks in order to gain more reach and influence debates.

This results in the problem for the anti-discrimination agency that it is difficult to distinguish between reputable and questionable sources.

X-CEO Elon Musk is doing the rest of the problem: By withdrawing from the voluntary EU agreement to combat it, the billionaire is indicating a lack of will to decisively counter disinformation.

Role model function as a state institution – will other public bodies follow?

According to its own statement, the anti-discrimination agency has a role model function as a state institution, which is why it should remain at X no longer justifiable be.

At this point, the ADS also asked other ministries and public bodies to ask themselves the question of the viability of appearing on the platform.

After all, X is a disinformation network, […] whose owner spreads anti-Semitic, racist and populist content.

According to the ADS, the account should be deactivated tomorrow.

Note for our readers: We have deactivated the comments as a precaution. We apologize for any inconvenience. Nevertheless, we would like to invite you to think about how the microblogging platform has changed in the last few weeks and months. Perhaps you have long since migrated to Bluesky or Mastodon?