Some decisions keep you awake at night.
Welcome to FreeAstroScience.com, where we usually look up at the stars to find clarity. But today, my gaze is fixed firmly on the ground, on a screen that has become increasingly difficult to look at. I am writing this from my desk in Tirana, feeling the weight of a choice that might hurt our visibility but heals our conscience. We have decided not to renew our Premium+ profile on X.
This isn't about saving a few dollars. It is about where those dollars go.
The Breaking Point
You might wonder what changed. We have tolerated the algorithmic shifts and the chaotic updates for months. But this week, a line was crossed that no amount of reach can justify.
On December 8, 2025, news broke that Elon Musk had declared what looks like a personal war against the European Union . The context is messy—a €120 million fine imposed on X for violating transparency rules under the Digital Services Act . Fines happen in business. But the reaction was not business.
Musk didn't just contest the fine. He called for the abolition of the EU, demanding sovereignty be returned to individual nations . Then, the rhetoric turned into something much darker.
Musk replied "Pretty much" to a post featuring the EU flag with a swastika emerging from underneath it, captioned "The Fourth Reich" .
I want you to pause and visualize that. The owner of a global communication platform endorsed a comparison between a democratic institution and the Nazi regime. As a European—born in Italy, living in Albania—this imagery isn't just offensive. It is dangerous.
Retaliation Over Responsibility
The situation escalated quickly. Following the fine, X expelled the European Commission's advertising account from the platform . The justification was that the Commission had published "misleading content."
Brussels pushed back immediately. They clarified that they always use social media platforms "in good faith" and employ the specific tools provided by those platforms . This feels less like content moderation and more like a temper tantrum. It looks like retaliation against a regulator that dared to enforce the rules.
When a platform punishes a governing body for doing its job while simultaneously amplifying "Fourth Reich" narratives, we have to ask ourselves a hard question.
Are we customers here, or are we accomplices?
The Shadow of History
This isn't just about one post. The source of our discomfort runs deeper. The La Repubblica report highlights a troubling pattern regarding Musk's background and recent behavior. It mentions his South African roots and his grandfather, Joshua Haldeman, who was an activist defending apartheid .
Of course, we are not our ancestors. But the report also notes that Musk has attracted attention for repeating gestures that resemble fascist salutes on various occasions . When you combine that with an endorsement of swastika imagery against the EU, the benefit of the doubt evaporates.
We deal in science. We deal in evidence. And the evidence suggests that X is morphing into a political weapon used to destabilize institutions Musk dislikes.
Why We Are Walking Away
FreeAstroScience is a small group. We rely on social media to share the wonders of the cosmos with you. The "Premium+" badge gave us a boost. It helped our articles about black holes and quantum physics reach more curious minds.
But paying for that privilege now feels like funding the erosion of democratic values.
We cannot in good conscience pay a monthly fee to a man who dismisses the Holocaust's legacy by using it as a cheap political slur against the EU. We cannot support a platform that bans the European Commission while amplifying hate speech.
What This Means for You
We aren't disappearing. You will still find us on X with our standard profile for now. We will keep posting because we refuse to cede the space entirely to darkness. But our financial support ends today.
We are redirecting those resources. We will invest in platforms that respect history, truth, and their users.
Goya once etched the phrase, "The sleep of reason breeds monsters." It is a reminder that when we stop thinking critically, when we accept the unacceptable, we invite chaos. Right now, reason seems to be sleeping on X.
We choose to stay awake.
Thank you for reading, and thank you for understanding why we had to make this call. The universe is vast and beautiful, and we will keep exploring it with you—honestly, and with our heads held high.
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