Councillor raises fears over 'hateful' X content

A councillor has raised fears of "hateful content" on X since the social media platform was taken over by Elon Musk.

Liberal Democrat councillor James Bradley told a full Solihull Council meeting on Tuesday that the authority could be seen as "tacitly accepting" the content if it continued to post.

The council confirmed that it was no longer posting on X, due to a lack of people seeing its posts.

Mr Musk has previously told the BBC the platform had not seen a rise in hate speech and its purpose remained to "serve the public conversation".

The council periodically reviews its social channels and the most recent review led to the decision to not add content for the time being, according to the Conservative cabinet member for resources, Bob Sleigh.

The last post from the authority's account, which had more than 20,000 followers and had been used since 2009, was on January 20 about an emergency road closure.

The social media site, formerly known as Twitter, has come under the spotlight since being bought by Musk for a reported $44bn (£35.5bn) in 2022.

Bradley added that in recent months the platform also experienced "more brazen actions" from the new owner.

He called on cabinet members at the meeting to "take a moral stance and distance ourselves" from the content.

A number of councils including Renfrewshire Council, Devon County Council and North Somerset Council had already decided to stop using X.

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.

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