Dear readers!
Many of you have already noticed that the Austrian Wings Facebook page has been unavailable since the beginning of July and have written to us about it. There is a good reason for this: we are withdrawing from this platform. For many years, Facebook was an important reach multiplier and an important tool for reader retention. But the importance of this platform has gradually declined in recent years. That is why, since the Corona pandemic, there have been repeated considerations about withdrawing from it. This is because the reduced importance as a reach multiplier was offset by a steadily increasing administrative burden.
Although – and a big THANK YOU to you for this – well over 90 percent of our almost 21,000 followers knew how to behave on Facebook, there were always a handful of “trolls” who deliberately caused unrest, which meant that our volunteer moderators were sometimes busy for several hours a day keeping order on Facebook. They didn’t have enough time for the actual editorial work. Last but not least, since October 7th, we have also been repeatedly confronted with anti-Semitic hostility and with the fact that Jew-haters, mostly young male Muslims(as is well known, we report extensively on the defensive struggle of the Israeli Air Force against the Hamas terrorists) reported our page to Facebook because of alleged copyright infringements, etc. We had to make statements, raise objections, etc.
Long story short: In the end, the benefits no longer outweighed the maintenance effort and so we decided to implement what had been on the table for several years: the end of Austrian Wings on Facebook. Of course, we will continue to be represented on X / Twitter And who knows, maybe one day we’ll return to Facebook or appear on another social media platform. In any case, we will invest the freed-up time in our editorial work.
We thank all Facebook followers for their loyalty over the years and invite you to follow us on X / Follow Twitter.
Euer Austrian Wings Team
