Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 47th president in United States history today. The nation's big tech oligarchs have been cozying up to Trump with increasing enthusiasm, starting with Twitter/X's Elon Musk before the election and continuing with Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and TikTok's leadership more recently. Zuckerberg announced this month that Meta would be loosening up moderation of language around topics such as immigration and LGBTQ+ people as well as abandoning fact checking in favor of X-style community notes. And when TikTok came back online in the US Sunday just hours after going dark due to the enactment of a ban, it sent a push notification to every American user crediting Trump for reviving the app — a move that indicates every major social media platform has now been overtaken by the right wing, per US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
These developments have led many people to depart from these platforms in protest. That number continues to expand this week, including some figures who have been major activists in addition to their musical contributions.
The Cure's Robert Smith, for instance, has often made headlines with his tweets about Ticketmaster's "scam" pricing, but he announced Sunday that he's leaving his X account behind in favor of Bluesky, Instagram, and Mastodon. "TIME TO GO," Smith wrote in his final post. "ANY OTHER ACCOUNT ON TWITTER CLAIMING TO BE ME IS A LIE."
Meanwhile, several prominent veteran musicians announced their participation in "Lights Out META," a weeklong boycott of Meta services including Facebook, Instagram, Threads, WhatsApp, Messenger, Giphy, Meta Quest, and Ray-Ban Meta from Jan. 19-26. Among them are Michael Stipe of R.E.M. (who already quit X last fall), Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go's, and Carole King. King directed followers to her Bluesky account.
It will be interesting to see whether the relatively small Bluesky, cited by AOC as the only significant network not to be dominated by the right, will continue to gain traction.
19TH JANUARY 2025.
TIME TO GO.
ANY OTHER ACCOUNT ON TWITTER CLAIMING TO BE ME IS A LIE.
I MAY FROM TIME TO TIME BE HERE: https://t.co/wgY0dp14Tr
OR HERE: https://t.co/fjXtL5cOJ5
OR HERE: https://t.co/hsBEt2Jof8...
OTHERWISE I WILL LIKELY BE OUTSIDE.ONWARDS...
RSX— ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) January 19, 2025
@aoc Let’s put all of the pieces together.
♬ original sound - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
