The SNP Government is considering whether to cease its use of X in the wake of repeated rants by Elon Musk, the First Minister has said.
John Swinney said he would continue posting on the social media site, formerly known as Twitter, for now but did not rule out quitting it altogether in the future.
“I’ll keep considering this, and it’s certainly not my last word on the subject, but I want to use all channels to communicate with the public,” the SNP leader said today.
“But I’ve got to be satisfied those channels are appropriate for me and for my government. So, while I am still using X just now, I will consider further the issues raised by the appropriateness of that, when I see how it is being used by Elon Musk.”
The number of regular users on X has plummeted in recent years since it was bought over and renamed by Musk, a controversial South African businessman known for his political outbursts.
As first reported by the Record, the Scottish Government last year halted all advertising spending on the platform. More than £377,000 was spent on Twitter adverts in 2022 in comparison.
It comes after Gordon Brown yesterday accused Musk of peddling “a complete fabrication” on how he dealt with grooming gangs when he was prime minister.
The X owner shared online claims the former Labour PM issued a circular to UK police forces effectively telling them not to prosecute rape gangs.
The multi-billionaire also accused Keir Starmer of being “deeply complicit” in a cover-up of grooming gangs.
Online adverts are a key way for ministers to promote important policies such as public health campaigns. But civil servants last bought advertising space on Twitter, since renamed X, in March 2023 – the same month Humza Yousaf became First Minister.
The drop-off in spending came after a long-running row between Musk and the former SNP leader.
Yousaf branded the tech billionaire “one of the most dangerous men on the planet” following remarks made by Musk in relation to rioting in some English towns and cities in August last year.
The businessman and the former SNP leader have clashed several times after Musk called the MSP a “blatant racist” over a 2020 speech in which he pointed out that all senior positions in Scotland are held by white people.
Meta this week announced that Facebook and Instagram will move away from using third-party fact checkers to flag misleading content in favour of user-based notes similar to X.
Boss Mark Zuckerberg has said the system which has built up in his company in recent years has become biased and is making too many mistakes, saying he wants to return to his platforms’ core values of free speech.
But fact-checking organisations say the move will mean misinformation will spread more easily online.
Asked about the changes during a visit to a battery storage site in South Lanarkshire, Swinney said quality factual information should “underpin all of our discourse in life and certainly within public policy”.
He added: “I’m concerned about these developments, because anything that undermines the reliability of information that’s available to the public causes uncertainty and potentially damage to the quality of our debate.”
He also said populism is a “disaster for our society” which he will seek to confront.
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