Following the news that Elon Musk is acquiring Twitter in a deal valued at approximately $44 billion USD (about $56 billion CAD), users with big followings have seemingly started experiencing significant fluctuations in their Twitter following in both directions.
Twitter says that these fluctuations in follower count are completely organic, owing the change to several new and departing users.
“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 given to NBC News.
Since the acquisition, former President Barack Obama, the most followed user on Twitter, has lost more than 300,000 followers, whereas American artist Katy Perry lost more than 200,000 followers.
On the other hand, Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, a popular right-wing figure gained about 90,000 followers, and so did Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who gained nearly 100,000 new followers.
The sudden volatility in follower count indicates that people who support liberal ideas and left-wing politicians, in general, are leaving the platform, fearing Musk’s adamancy to establish free speech on the platform, which will bring a major change in the content moderation policies of the platform, and bring back users like former president Donald Trump who has long been banned from the platform.
Trump did say that he won’t be returning to the social media platform in favour of his TRUTH Social.
Source: NBC News
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