Because of worries that the social media platform was being exploited to promote false information and hate speech, Slovenia’s ruling Freedom Movement party (GS) said on Saturday that it has chosen to cease using Twitter. In response to the recent acquisition of Twitter by billionaire Elon Musk, GS said in a statement, ‘We may predict they will further open its doors to indecent communication and hate speech’.
With a platform promising to restore civility to politics and improve the rule of law, which detractors claim was compromised by former conservative prime minister Janez Jansa, Robert Golob’s liberal party won the parliamentary elections in April. While Golob declared he would not use Twitter ‘to avoid the temptation of rapid fingers,’ Jansa, a frequent user of the social networking site with over 100,000 followers in a nation of two million, used it to attack critics and the media.
The GS, which is in control of 41 of the 90 seats in parliament, claimed technological issues had prevented it from using Twitter for three weeks, but eventually realised it was unnecessary for communicating with the public effectively. According to the GS, ‘concurrently, the platform has been misused by members and followers of some political parties to polarise society, distribute fake news, manipulate, discredit, insult or even to employ hate speech’. The GS said that it does not want to be a part of this.
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