ABC Statement on X (Twitter)
The ABC has decided to further reduce our activity on X (formerly known as Twitter) and focus our effort on the accounts that overwhelmingly provide the most value.
These are:
- ABC News (@abcnews). This account drives the majority of the ABC’s impact on X and will continue to publish news from Australia’s most trusted news source.
- ABC Sport (@abcsport). Sport remains a popular genre on X, with Australian sports fans engaging with sports content before, during and after games on the platform. @abcsport will continue to be the home of our daily sports conversation on the platform.
- ABC Chinese (@abcchinese). The ABC reflects contemporary Australia which includes creating informative, educational and entertaining content that is relevant, relatable, and inclusive for Australians with different backgrounds and interests. @abcchinese reaches Chinese speaking audiences on Twitter.
- ABC Australia (@abcaustralia). The ABC’s masterbrand account will showcase the breadth and depth of ABC content, as well as being a home for official news, statements and other programming information from the ABC.
All other ABC accounts will be discontinued starting from today. The accounts will have pinned posts informing users where they can access relevant content.
There are multiple reasons for this decision. In February the ABC closed three program accounts and the results from that have been positive, with negligible reduction in referral traffic from Twitter to ABC content.
The vast majority of the ABC’s social media audience is located on other platforms and we want to focus our effort and resources where our audiences are.
X is introducing charges which are making the platform increasingly costly to use.
Also, we have found that closing individual program accounts helps limit the exposure of team members to the sometimes toxic interactions that unfortunately are becoming more prevalent. Concerningly, X has reduced its trust and safety teams.