NOT WORTH IT

Australia’s National Broadcaster Closes Accounts on ‘Toxic’ Twitter

They’ll be following U.S. public service broadcasters out the door.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is closing down nearly all of its accounts on Twitter, citing an increase in “toxic interactions” on the platform and rising costs. Australia’s national broadcaster will only retain four official accounts on the site, which Elon Musk recently rebranded as X. “Starting from today, other ABC accounts will be discontinued,” the ABC managing director, David Anderson, told staff. He added that engagement with other shows on the network became more positive after their Twitter accounts were dropped earlier this year. “We also found that closing individual program accounts helps limit the exposure of team members to the toxic interactions that unfortunately are becoming more prevalent on X,” Anderson said. “Concerningly, X has reduced its trust and safety teams. Additionally, it is introducing charges which make the platform increasingly costly to use.” U.S. public service broadcasters NPR and PBS similarly left Twitter in April.