Elon Musk effect: Lakhs of users fleeing Twitter and deactivating accounts
India Today
Twitter reportedly witnessed “fluctuations in follower counts” from “organic” accounts just after news broke that Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk had bought the popular social network.
Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has taken everyone by surprise. While many are worried about this platform turning into a place for hate speech and misinformation under his leadership, a lot of users decided to leave the platform after thinking about the fate of Twitter. The platform reportedly witnessed “fluctuations in follower counts” from “organic” accounts just after news broke that Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk had bought the popular social network.
According to a report by NBC News, popular singer Katy Perry lost more than 200,000 followers on Twitter after it was announced that Musk would take over Twitter. The cited source claims that former President Barack Obama also witnessed a reduction in followers by a big margin. It says that more than 300,000 were lost, suggesting that many people have already left the popular micro-blogging site.
A Twitter spokesperson told NBC News that the accounts that witnessed a big drop in followers were “high-profile” accounts. While Twitter hasn’t revealed the exact amount of user base it might have lost in just one day, it did assert that the platform is keeping a watch on "fluctuations in follower counts."
Meanwhile, some right-wing politicians, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and President of Brasil Jair Bolsonaro, are reportedly gaining new followers on Twitter. Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, reportedly saw an increase of around 100,000 followers. All this raised questions of whether automated accounts were created to bolster follower count. Following this, Twitter confirmed to NBC News that 'fluctuations in follower counts' are not automated and are organic.
"While we continue to take action on accounts that violate our spam policy which can affect follower counts, these fluctuations appear to largely be a result of an increase in new account creation and deactivation,” Twitter said in a statement.
