Another Bundesliga has left X and taken aim at Elon Musk's handling of the platform formerly known as Twitter.
X is now run by billionaire Musk, who bought the site for around £38.26 billion from founder Jack Dorsey, who helped build the site in October 2022.
Musk has made a number of changes to the platform, from changing the verification process to changing the name itself and dropping the bird theme from the site that previously existed.
But critics have spoken out about his work, which was highlighted when he endorsed Donald Trump again for president of the United States.
Bundesliga club St Pauli became the first club from Germany to leave the social media site earlier this month, releasing a statement on their club website saying they had been referred to Bluesky.
Now compatriot Werder Bremen, formerly the team of Kevin De Bruyne, among others, has also announced their departure while disapproving of Musk.
“The management of SV Werder Bremen has taken the decision that the Green and Whites will leave the social media platform X (formerly Twitter),” their statement began. Klaus Filbry, Chairman of the Board of Directors, announced this during the general meeting on Monday.
“Since Elon Musk took over the platform, hate speech, hatred of minorities, right-wing extremist posts and conspiracy theories have increased at an incredible pace under the guise of freedom of expression. The radicalization of the platform is driven by Elon Musk and his messages themselves; he has expressed transphobic, anti-Semitic views and spread conspiracy theories, among other things.
'Almost nothing is sanctioned on the platform anymore. Platform X's algorithms and controls are completely non-transparent. Moreover, Elon Musk instrumentalizes the network as a political weapon, as recently became apparent from the American election campaign.'
A number of clubs use
Clubs also use the platform to make money, with creators now getting paid for their content.
A number of users have now flocked to alternative platform Bluesky – which was developed in collaboration with Dorsey – while Meta's previously briefly threatened Threads It's no different for Bremen, who themselves have encouraged fans to follow them on Dorsey's new platform.
“SV Werder Bremen is clearly against hatred and incitement, against discrimination and exclusion,” the statement continued. 'The Green-Whites stand for diversity, freedom and democracy, for cohesion and solidarity in society.
'With the radicalization of the platform recently, a red line has been crossed for the Bundesliga club. The Green and Whites are therefore leaving X and hope that many of the more than 600,000 followers will follow the club on Bluesky in the future.'
St Pauli, meanwhile, posted: 'The club announced the reasons for its withdrawal, saying that owner Elon Musk had turned a space for debate into an amplifier of hatred capable of influencing the German parliamentary election campaign.
'Since taking over Twitter, as the platform was previously called, Musk has turned X into a hate machine. Racism and conspiracy theories are allowed to spread unchecked and even curated. Insults and threats are rarely punished and sold as freedom of speech.”
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