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Why is this such a mystery to people like you? The biggest news item of the past week has been Elon buying Twitter. Prominent conservative accounts had follow

Why is this such a mystery to people like you? The biggest news item of the past week has been Elon buying Twitter. Prominent conservative accounts had followers go up by ~1% Prominent liberal accounts had followers go down by ~1% People who don't like the idea of Musk owning Twitter left (though probably temporarily) and people who previously left due to Twitter's policies returned because they read the news and like the idea of Musk owning it.

prionassembly 4y ago
I started following a bunch of right-wingish accounts just because it was aired that they had been banned so I wanted to see what they were all about for a while. OTOH the Musk hysteria became annoying so I unfollowed a lot of blue checks and leftish people.
bobkazamakis 4y ago
>People who don't like the idea of Musk owning Twitter left really? thousands of people just left twitter at the idea of Musk owning it, and thousands joined out of love for Musk? within a week? Maybe rhetoric like this is why it's a mystery.
- Macha 4y ago
  Thousands are a drop in the bucket when you talk about a site with user counts in the 200 million range. I can totally belive 0.01% of Twitter's userbase (20000 users) made kneejerk decisions based on the ownership.
- stnmtn 4y ago
  Yes, that is exactly what happened. It's clear and you can see by the likes of people such as Jameela Jamil leaving explicitly because of Elon buying it. If you are on twitter, and follow people on the left, a big topic right now is whether people should leave as a direct result of the Elon purchase.
  - blitzar 4y ago
    > It's clear and you can see by the likes of people such as Jameela Jamil leaving Its incredibly obviously clear, given the thing you say has happened, hasnt happened. [0] [0] https://twitter.com/jameelajamil https://twitter.com/jameelajamil
    - stale2002 4y ago
      Did you read the tweets on that twitter? Here, I'll help you out: https://twitter.com/jameelajamil/status/1518641966661177344 https://twitter.com/jameelajamil/status/1518641966661177344 If someone makes a twitter post, saying that they "will FINALLY leave", I think it is fair to describe that person as being in the process of "leaving". Thus, that is fair evidence that yes, at least people are talking about leaving twitter over the elon purchase, and that this might effect user stats.
      - blitzar 4y ago
        It is also proof that many people say they will do something on their twitter account and their twitter account remains. I have presented conclusive and definative proof that they have not left twitter at hte time of this posting. Do you have proof that they are "in the process of leaving twitter"?
        stnmtn 4y ago
        The thing is that it's very hard to prove that someone left twitter if you only define leaving twitter as "accounts being deleted"... as their account is deleted. That makes it something hard to prove, and if that is the only way that you will believe that anyone has left twitter there's no way I'm going to spend that amount of time digging up previously active accounts that have since been deleted
        blitzar 4y ago
        The topic in question is why some accounts have lost followers - the explanation is people have left twitter - the "proof" is jameelajamil left twitter. We have established the account is still there - we agree on that. They tweeted "they were leaving" - we agree on that. However, they have not deleted their account and have not unfollowed everyone they previously followed [0]. So if this is the example of "what is happening" how does that action (saying you are leaving, not deleting your account and not unfollowing anyone) lead to accounts have lost thousands followers [0] https://socialblade.com/twitter/user/jameelajamil https://socialblade.com/twitter/user/jameelajamil
- dspillett 4y ago
  > really? thousands of people just left twitter at the idea of Musk owning it I know a fair few people said they would, for a few different reasons. Particularly as, given the size of the user-base to start with, “thousands” is a pretty small number. > and thousands joined out of love for Musk? More likely because of the “freedom of speech” promises that were being made. I'd wager that many right leaning people who had previously left (or not joined in the first place) over certain other people being kicked, off are quite enamoured by the idea that their brand of rhetoric might be less unwelcome there in future. The converse (wanting that sort of talk to continue to be frowned upon) is one of the reasons some others talked about leaving. Certain messaging is key, not Musk specifically (although it was him giving off those messages).
- jdrc 4y ago
  Yes, it's hard to believe that twitters users can be emotional and impulsive drama kings
- sb057 4y ago
  FWIW, media organizations seem absolutely giddy to be able to run articles about how to delete a Twitter account. All of these are from the past week: https://www.cnet.com/tech/how-to-delete-your-twitter-account-and-reactivate-it-if-you-change-your-mind/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/how-to-delete-your-twitter-account... https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/26/twitter-musk-data-protect/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/26/twitter... https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/how-to-delete-twitter https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/how-to-delete-twitter https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/how-to-delete-twitter-account-b2065782.html https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/how-to-delete-twitter-acc... https://www.newsweek.com/how-delete-your-twitter-account-1700632 https://www.newsweek.com/how-delete-your-twitter-account-170... https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/1601135/how-to-delete-your-twitter-account-Elon-Musk-evg https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/1601... https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/delete-twitter-and-your-terrible-tweets https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/delete-twitter-and-your-terribl... https://9to5google.com/2022/04/27/how-to-delete-twitter-android/ https://9to5google.com/2022/04/27/how-to-delete-twitter-andr... https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-to-delete-your-twitter-account-if-elon-musks-takeover-bid-has-you-serious-about-signing-off-11650985026 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-to-delete-your-twitter... https://finance.yahoo.com/video/delete-twitter-account-154830351.html https://finance.yahoo.com/video/delete-twitter-account-15483... https://blog.mozilla.org/en/internet-culture/how-to-delete-twitter/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/internet-culture/how-to-delete-t... https://www.thestreet.com/investing/how-to-delete-twitter https://www.thestreet.com/investing/how-to-delete-twitter https://www.pcworld.com/article/695148/how-to-delete-your-twitter-account.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/695148/how-to-delete-your-tw...
  - BitwiseFool 4y ago
    This reminds me of that massive and coordinated push to get people to delete Facebook many months ago. I have no idea if it actually worked but most people I know wound up getting hooked on TikTok around the same time, which is arguably even worse.
- aeturnum 4y ago
  Twitter has ~200m daily active users. I can't find recent churn numbers, but older reports suggest it is quite high[1]. Generally, churn would not have much of an ideological bias. On average people would leave for personal reasons and so you get an even-ish spread. However, if the major events of the day do have an ideological character - you would expect those events to have an outsized impact in one direction or another on people along those ideological lines. So on a normal week you'd see both liberal and conservative accounts get +500 and -500 followers, but on this week the liberal gets -1000 and the conservative gets +1000. Same churn, but driven by what is on peoples' minds. [1] https://www.vox.com/2017/10/26/16552368/twitter-new-user-growth-churn-q3-earnings https://www.vox.com/2017/10/26/16552368/twitter-new-user-gro...
- brimble 4y ago
  I've seen conservative acquaintances (IRL, not just people I "know" online) posting about how excited they are to use Twitter again/more after Musk takes over, so yeah, seems plausible. [EDIT] Meanwhile, I've also seen people on the left (though not any I personally know—not many people I know, tweet) announcing that they'll be reducing their Twitter use, in anticipation of what they think Musk will do to it.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  If you go on reddit there are hordes of people announcing their departure. I'm not sure what the alternative hypothesis is. That angry twitter employees are implementing changes in advance of the Musk purchase?
  - dllthomas 4y ago
    The (conspiracy?) theory I've seen is that Twitter was secretly modifying the displayed counts (inflating for some, deflating for others), and now are getting rid of that manipulation so that Musk doesn't see it when he comes in.
rfrey 4y ago
What's with the "people like you"?
- TheDong 4y ago
  In context, it reads as "people who peddle this conspiracy theory". The parent comment had "seeing what is clear shadow banning/suppression especially of politicians ..." The response, I think, is trying to group the other people who remain belligerently insistent that this must be some shadowy conspiracy, not just random shifts in usage, or a reaction to news, or something else we don't know.
remarkEon 4y ago
For this to be true I think you have to make the argument that people went in and deleted their accounts, rather than just deleting the app on their phone. The former involves a couple more steps and the latter is pretty costless and easy. Same logic applies to the follower gains, but I think that one is easier to make since the people who like the idea of Musk owning twitter may actually be new users. I don't know, I don't work at twitter.
ComradePhil 4y ago
I understand conservatives gaining followers. It was in the news, conservatives who would otherwise not install Twitter now installed the Twitter app and created the account. But you're saying that the same amount of liberal users didn't just delete the app, like you expect every normal non-techie user to do. They actively went through the trouble of deleting the account hidden behind dark pattern? Not buying that, sorry.

prionassembly 4y ago

I started following a bunch of right-wingish accounts just because it was aired that they had been banned so I wanted to see what they were all about for a while. OTOH the Musk hysteria became annoying so I unfollowed a lot of blue checks and leftish people.

bobkazamakis 4y ago

>People who don't like the idea of Musk owning Twitter left really? thousands of people just left twitter at the idea of Musk owning it, and thousands joined out of love for Musk? within a week? Maybe rhetoric like this is why it's a mystery.

Macha 4y ago
Thousands are a drop in the bucket when you talk about a site with user counts in the 200 million range. I can totally belive 0.01% of Twitter's userbase (20000 users) made kneejerk decisions based on the ownership.
stnmtn 4y ago
Yes, that is exactly what happened. It's clear and you can see by the likes of people such as Jameela Jamil leaving explicitly because of Elon buying it. If you are on twitter, and follow people on the left, a big topic right now is whether people should leave as a direct result of the Elon purchase.
- blitzar 4y ago
  > It's clear and you can see by the likes of people such as Jameela Jamil leaving Its incredibly obviously clear, given the thing you say has happened, hasnt happened. [0] [0] https://twitter.com/jameelajamil https://twitter.com/jameelajamil
  - stale2002 4y ago
    Did you read the tweets on that twitter? Here, I'll help you out: https://twitter.com/jameelajamil/status/1518641966661177344 https://twitter.com/jameelajamil/status/1518641966661177344 If someone makes a twitter post, saying that they "will FINALLY leave", I think it is fair to describe that person as being in the process of "leaving". Thus, that is fair evidence that yes, at least people are talking about leaving twitter over the elon purchase, and that this might effect user stats.
    - blitzar 4y ago
      It is also proof that many people say they will do something on their twitter account and their twitter account remains. I have presented conclusive and definative proof that they have not left twitter at hte time of this posting. Do you have proof that they are "in the process of leaving twitter"?
      - stnmtn 4y ago
        The thing is that it's very hard to prove that someone left twitter if you only define leaving twitter as "accounts being deleted"... as their account is deleted. That makes it something hard to prove, and if that is the only way that you will believe that anyone has left twitter there's no way I'm going to spend that amount of time digging up previously active accounts that have since been deleted
        blitzar 4y ago
        The topic in question is why some accounts have lost followers - the explanation is people have left twitter - the "proof" is jameelajamil left twitter. We have established the account is still there - we agree on that. They tweeted "they were leaving" - we agree on that. However, they have not deleted their account and have not unfollowed everyone they previously followed [0]. So if this is the example of "what is happening" how does that action (saying you are leaving, not deleting your account and not unfollowing anyone) lead to accounts have lost thousands followers [0] https://socialblade.com/twitter/user/jameelajamil https://socialblade.com/twitter/user/jameelajamil
dspillett 4y ago
> really? thousands of people just left twitter at the idea of Musk owning it I know a fair few people said they would, for a few different reasons. Particularly as, given the size of the user-base to start with, “thousands” is a pretty small number. > and thousands joined out of love for Musk? More likely because of the “freedom of speech” promises that were being made. I'd wager that many right leaning people who had previously left (or not joined in the first place) over certain other people being kicked, off are quite enamoured by the idea that their brand of rhetoric might be less unwelcome there in future. The converse (wanting that sort of talk to continue to be frowned upon) is one of the reasons some others talked about leaving. Certain messaging is key, not Musk specifically (although it was him giving off those messages).
jdrc 4y ago
Yes, it's hard to believe that twitters users can be emotional and impulsive drama kings
sb057 4y ago
FWIW, media organizations seem absolutely giddy to be able to run articles about how to delete a Twitter account. All of these are from the past week: https://www.cnet.com/tech/how-to-delete-your-twitter-account-and-reactivate-it-if-you-change-your-mind/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/how-to-delete-your-twitter-account... https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/26/twitter-musk-data-protect/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/26/twitter... https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/how-to-delete-twitter https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/how-to-delete-twitter https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/how-to-delete-twitter-account-b2065782.html https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/how-to-delete-twitter-acc... https://www.newsweek.com/how-delete-your-twitter-account-1700632 https://www.newsweek.com/how-delete-your-twitter-account-170... https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/1601135/how-to-delete-your-twitter-account-Elon-Musk-evg https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/1601... https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/delete-twitter-and-your-terrible-tweets https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/delete-twitter-and-your-terribl... https://9to5google.com/2022/04/27/how-to-delete-twitter-android/ https://9to5google.com/2022/04/27/how-to-delete-twitter-andr... https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-to-delete-your-twitter-account-if-elon-musks-takeover-bid-has-you-serious-about-signing-off-11650985026 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-to-delete-your-twitter... https://finance.yahoo.com/video/delete-twitter-account-154830351.html https://finance.yahoo.com/video/delete-twitter-account-15483... https://blog.mozilla.org/en/internet-culture/how-to-delete-twitter/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/internet-culture/how-to-delete-t... https://www.thestreet.com/investing/how-to-delete-twitter https://www.thestreet.com/investing/how-to-delete-twitter https://www.pcworld.com/article/695148/how-to-delete-your-twitter-account.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/695148/how-to-delete-your-tw...
- BitwiseFool 4y ago
  This reminds me of that massive and coordinated push to get people to delete Facebook many months ago. I have no idea if it actually worked but most people I know wound up getting hooked on TikTok around the same time, which is arguably even worse.
aeturnum 4y ago
Twitter has ~200m daily active users. I can't find recent churn numbers, but older reports suggest it is quite high[1]. Generally, churn would not have much of an ideological bias. On average people would leave for personal reasons and so you get an even-ish spread. However, if the major events of the day do have an ideological character - you would expect those events to have an outsized impact in one direction or another on people along those ideological lines. So on a normal week you'd see both liberal and conservative accounts get +500 and -500 followers, but on this week the liberal gets -1000 and the conservative gets +1000. Same churn, but driven by what is on peoples' minds. [1] https://www.vox.com/2017/10/26/16552368/twitter-new-user-growth-churn-q3-earnings https://www.vox.com/2017/10/26/16552368/twitter-new-user-gro...
brimble 4y ago
I've seen conservative acquaintances (IRL, not just people I "know" online) posting about how excited they are to use Twitter again/more after Musk takes over, so yeah, seems plausible. [EDIT] Meanwhile, I've also seen people on the left (though not any I personally know—not many people I know, tweet) announcing that they'll be reducing their Twitter use, in anticipation of what they think Musk will do to it.
s1artibartfast 4y ago
If you go on reddit there are hordes of people announcing their departure. I'm not sure what the alternative hypothesis is. That angry twitter employees are implementing changes in advance of the Musk purchase?
- dllthomas 4y ago
  The (conspiracy?) theory I've seen is that Twitter was secretly modifying the displayed counts (inflating for some, deflating for others), and now are getting rid of that manipulation so that Musk doesn't see it when he comes in.

rfrey 4y ago

What's with the "people like you"?

TheDong 4y ago
In context, it reads as "people who peddle this conspiracy theory". The parent comment had "seeing what is clear shadow banning/suppression especially of politicians ..." The response, I think, is trying to group the other people who remain belligerently insistent that this must be some shadowy conspiracy, not just random shifts in usage, or a reaction to news, or something else we don't know.

remarkEon 4y ago

For this to be true I think you have to make the argument that people went in and deleted their accounts, rather than just deleting the app on their phone. The former involves a couple more steps and the latter is pretty costless and easy. Same logic applies to the follower gains, but I think that one is easier to make since the people who like the idea of Musk owning twitter may actually be new users. I don't know, I don't work at twitter.

ComradePhil 4y ago

I understand conservatives gaining followers. It was in the news, conservatives who would otherwise not install Twitter now installed the Twitter app and created the account. But you're saying that the same amount of liberal users didn't just delete the app, like you expect every normal non-techie user to do. They actively went through the trouble of deleting the account hidden behind dark pattern? Not buying that, sorry.