Triple J Shuts Down Official Twitter Account

In sad news to anyone who loved following the yearly triple j hottest 100 countdown via Twitter (or X as it’s unfortunately now called), ABC has today (Aug 10) announced that they’ll be nuking nearly all of their official Twitter accounts.

“Starting from today, other ABC accounts will be discontinued,” the ABC managing director, David Anderson, reportedly told staff, as per The Guardian.

There will be just four remaining official accounts for Australia’s public broadcaster:@abcnews, @abcsport, @abcchinese and the master @abcaustralia account.

The ABC Media Watch account will also remain on the social media platform as they are independent. All other ABC accounts now feature a message saying that the page has been achieved.

This Twitter account has been archived. To stay in touch:
Download the app: https://t.co/VCA9O5Ht1b
Listen: https://t.co/Oi2cICbBIT
Visit us: https://t.co/P6TRdCCjMn
Follow us on TikTok: https://t.co/X99vPmtXBr

— triple j (@triplej) August 9, 2023

It comes following several Australian journalists exiting the platform due to ongoing abuse, which Anderson alluded to in his statement.

“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,” he said.

“Concerningly, X has reduced its trust and safety teams. Additionally, it is introducing charges which make the platform increasingly costly to use.”

Elon Musk has since thrown in his two cents amid the news by accusing the ABC of embracing censorship.

“Well of course they prefer censorship-friendly social media. The Australian public does not,” he posted.

Well of course they prefer censorship-friendly social media.

The Australian public does not.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 9, 2023

It comes following the news back in June that Twitter would begin charging users to operate automated services on their accounts, which lead to triple j shutting down their famed @triplejplays account.

The account was launched in November of 2009 as a way for the national youth broadcaster to chronicle, in realtime, every single track that made it to the airwaves. More than one million updates have been posted since, with the last – Good Time by Alex Lahey – being logged at 4:45am AEST on June 24.

The account posted one final tweet on June 28, reading: “After more than a million tweets sharing the tracks [and] artists we play, we have to say bye to @triplejplays. This is unfortunately due to Twitter moving to a paid model for automated services. To see what we’re playing, head to the triple j app or site.”