5 ms·

>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 o

>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
        stnmtn 4y ago
        Like I have said, I am not going to invest time into figuring out a way to find previously active twitter accounts that were deleted in the past ~4 days to have definite proof. I don't care enough, and it seems like it would take a time investment to figure out how to do that that a silly internet debate does not merit. I am asking you to take the step from "Many people are saying they will quit twitter and have stopped posting" -> "It is reasonable to assume that there are some amount of people who have quit twitter and deleted their account". If you are unwilling to make that conclusion, they by all means go ahead; but I think you are being unreasonable to not make that relatively safe assumption
  - stnmtn 4y ago
    https://twitter.com/jameelajamil/status/1518676806261477386 https://twitter.com/jameelajamil/status/1518676806261477386 I'm using her declaration as a high-profile example of someone deciding to leave twitter simply due to Elon's purchase. She hasn't deleted her account, most likely because she doesn't want to let someone else get her account name and impersonate her or something similar, but for non-celebrities it's really safe to assume that many people have deleted their accounts as a result of elon; and that many have created accounts as a result of elon; and their choices on who to follow will closely correlate with their politics. Can you provide any evidence that it's a grander conspiracy like you alleged?
    - blitzar 4y ago
      > Can you provide any evidence that it's a grander conspiracy like you alleged? I alleged absolutely nothing of the kind. I simply pointed out that X person leaving twitter had not actually occured. I could, use your cited example to point out that, while many people say they would leave twitter, like those that say they will leave the country if the other guy becomes president, they havent. As proven, obviously, by whoever this jameelajamil person is.
      - stnmtn 4y ago
        Ok, fair enough I thought you were on the side of the commenter who made this comment: > I'm still waiting for an explanation on why liberal accounts have lost thousands followers but conservative accounts have gained thousands. > I'm fairly liberal myself, but seeing what is clear shadow banning/suppression especially of politicians is borderline voting interference and should be punished heavily at both the corporate and personnel level.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
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.

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
        stnmtn 4y ago
        Like I have said, I am not going to invest time into figuring out a way to find previously active twitter accounts that were deleted in the past ~4 days to have definite proof. I don't care enough, and it seems like it would take a time investment to figure out how to do that that a silly internet debate does not merit. I am asking you to take the step from "Many people are saying they will quit twitter and have stopped posting" -> "It is reasonable to assume that there are some amount of people who have quit twitter and deleted their account". If you are unwilling to make that conclusion, they by all means go ahead; but I think you are being unreasonable to not make that relatively safe assumption
- stnmtn 4y ago
  https://twitter.com/jameelajamil/status/1518676806261477386 https://twitter.com/jameelajamil/status/1518676806261477386 I'm using her declaration as a high-profile example of someone deciding to leave twitter simply due to Elon's purchase. She hasn't deleted her account, most likely because she doesn't want to let someone else get her account name and impersonate her or something similar, but for non-celebrities it's really safe to assume that many people have deleted their accounts as a result of elon; and that many have created accounts as a result of elon; and their choices on who to follow will closely correlate with their politics. Can you provide any evidence that it's a grander conspiracy like you alleged?
  - blitzar 4y ago
    > Can you provide any evidence that it's a grander conspiracy like you alleged? I alleged absolutely nothing of the kind. I simply pointed out that X person leaving twitter had not actually occured. I could, use your cited example to point out that, while many people say they would leave twitter, like those that say they will leave the country if the other guy becomes president, they havent. As proven, obviously, by whoever this jameelajamil person is.
    - stnmtn 4y ago
      Ok, fair enough I thought you were on the side of the commenter who made this comment: > I'm still waiting for an explanation on why liberal accounts have lost thousands followers but conservative accounts have gained thousands. > I'm fairly liberal myself, but seeing what is clear shadow banning/suppression especially of politicians is borderline voting interference and should be punished heavily at both the corporate and personnel level.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

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.