Twitter lost over 1.3 million users in the week following Elon Musk’s $44 billion purchase of the social media platform.
According to MIT Technology Review, the firm Bot Sentinel, which tracks Twitter behavior by analyzing more than 3.1 million accounts and their daily activity, “believes that around 877,000 accounts were deactivated and another 497,000 were suspended between Oct. 27 and Nov. 1.”
“According to the outlet, this is more than double the usual number.
“We’ve seen an increase in people deactivating their accounts, as well as Twitter suspending accounts.” “According to Christopher Bouzy, the founder of Bot Sentinel.
He went on to say that he and Bot Sentinel calculated the figures by looking at the proportion of users they analyze who had deactivated or suspended their accounts after Musk took over, and then applying that percentage to Twitter’s overall user base, which is estimated to be 237 million “monetizable daily active users.”
However, he tweeted on Monday night, “Twitter usage is at an all-time high lol.”
“I just hope the servers don’t melt!” he replied to his own tweet.
According to MIT Technology Review, Bot Sentinel discovered 11,535 accounts they were monitoring had been deactivated between Oct. 27 and Nov. 1.
Furthermore, 6,824 accounts had been suspended, which occurs when Twitter removes accounts for reasons such as inactivity, inauthenticity, or a violation of site rules, according to the outlet.
5958 accounts were deactivated or suspended in the week before Musk purchased Twitter, implying a more than 200% increase in account losses in the days following the purchase.
“We believe the increase in deactivations is due to people being upset with Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and deciding to deactivate their accounts in protest,” Bouzy told the outlet.
The world’s richest man made an offer to buy the social media company in April. Musk said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission at the time: “Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company. … Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it.”
After months of fits and starts and legal wrangling, he purchased the social media platform on Oct. 27.
Since then, he has laid off roughly half of Twitter’s workforce and admitted that advertisers are leaving the platform.
Furthermore, the company announced that its iconic verification system will become a subscription service: Twitter Blue, a $7.99 offering that includes the blue checkmark and will soon have “half the ads & much better ones,” as well as the ability to post longer videos, is mentioned in an update to the iOS app.
Musk said on Twitter on Saturday that an Android update is in the works. He also stated that current verified users with blue checkmarks would lose their verification status in “a couple of months.”
Twitter users should expect big changes to the site as Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, seeks to boost revenue.
“Trash me all day, but it’ll cost $8,” Musk tweeted Friday.
Musk’s Twitter bio on Saturday read “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator” and his location as “Hell.”
A former Twitter Inc engineer has accused the company of firing him days after it was acquired by Elon Musk because he developed a tool to allow workers to save important documents in anticipation of mass layoffs.
The engineer, Emmanuel Cornet, filed a complaint with the U.S. National Labor Relations Board on Monday claiming he was engaged in protected activity when he shared the software on an internal Twitter messaging channel.
“Protected activities” are actions that workers can take without fear of employer retaliation under U.S. labor law.
