The federal government wants to monitor the development of the short message service Twitter “very closely” after it was taken over by tech billionaire Elon Musk. "We also say that such a platform has a special responsibility because of the effect it has on our public," said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit on Friday in Berlin. The possible changes will be observed over the next few weeks and months, and then we will draw our own conclusions.

These conclusions could also be asking yourself the question of whether you want to remain present on this platform or not, said Hebestreit and added: "I don't want to threaten or promise that, but say that these questions naturally follow ."

Much used platform

The federal government, members of the government and top politicians from other parties have long used Twitter to spread messages, to comment on political developments or to announce appointments. Some, such as Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and most recently SPD leader Saskia Esken, had also said goodbye to the platform. Esken had accused Twitter of not doing anything about fake profiles and of being too careless in dealing with reported criminal content. The takeover by Tesla boss Musk will certainly not make the platform a non-profit company.

Musk had indicated the completion of the Twitter takeover on Friday night. "The bird is freed," he wrote without further detail. The Twitter logo is a blue bird - and Musk had always emphasized that he wanted to free the platform from restrictions on freedom of expression that were too strong in his view.