Barcelona city council quits X and leaves account to report on emergencies

The Barcelona city council will leave the social media 𝕏, formerly known as Twitter, from Friday, after mayor Jaume Collboni already did so in September.

Of the 80 different 𝕏 channels the council has, only @bcn_ajuntament will remain active to report on emergencies, meteorological warnings, and issues on mobility.

The decision, announced in a statement on Monday morning, is driven by the "spiral of misinformation attacking democracies. " Officials want to lead the way toward "technological humanism and digital democracy," a will that has been incompatible with staying on 𝕏.

The council opened the @Barcelona_cat account in 2009.

Barcelona will now be the first major Spanish city to follow the example of other European capitals, institutions, and media outlets.

Collboni himself already left 𝕏 in September.

Local information from the city council will continue to be available on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Telegram, and YouTube.

In November, the University of Barcelona announced the educational institution would leave 𝕏. During the last months, several organizations have opened accounts on Bluesky.

'Everything you do is wrong'

The leader of the Junts party, Jordi Martí, criticized the local government's decision without asking the opposition what they would have done.

"The account on 𝕏 is not from the Jaume Collboni government. It is from the city council, where you only have 10 out of the 41 councilors," Martí wrote on 𝕏.

He added that he does not believe it is "coherent" to leave 𝕏 but stay in Meta (Facebook and Instagram).

Leader of the People's Party in Barcelona, Dani Sirera, also criticized the decision, saying on 𝕏 that "the left-wing parties only like what they can control. The city council should continue to inform all its citizens using all available social media."

"We have a mayor that has more facilities to close Twitter than narcopisos (flats focused on drug trafficking)," he said during an interview on RTVE.