Celebrity and Politician Profiles Report Massive Loss of Followers After Elon Musk Buys Twitter The social network has limited itself to declaring that the fluctuation is due to 100% organic factors, that is, the creation and deactivation of new accounts.
By Eduardo Scheffler Zawadzki Edited by Eduardo Scheffler Zawadzki
This article was translated from our Spanish edition.
Only a couple of days have passed since the news was made public that Elon Musk is the new owner of Twitter and there are already reports of atypical activity on the social network. According to a note from NBC News , several profiles of artists, influencers and celebrities have reported a massive loss of followers for no apparent reason. The account of the singer Katy Perry , the third with the largest number of followers on the social network (with more than 108 million!) registered a decrease of about 200,000 users from one day to the next. Former US President Barack Obama lost 300,000 followers and actor Mark Hamill tweeted that he had lost 8,000 followers in one day. In the comments of the famous Star Wars actor's tweet, you can read comments from other accounts complaining about the same situation, including politics, Neera Tanden and the Auschwitz Memorial account.
Christopher Bouzy , the creator of Bot Sentinel , a platform created in 2018 that monitors the activity of false accounts on Twitter, uploaded a post in which he assures that the accounts of Democratic politicians have suffered a loss of users, while those of politicians Republicans have increased their number of supporters.
Exclusive: Over the past 24 hours, Democrats have experienced a significant decrease in followers, while Republicans have experienced a significant increase in followers... pic.twitter.com/jOg0or4bKS
— Christopher Bouzy (@cbouzy) April 26, 2022
What is happening with the followers on Twitter?
Despite the multiple complaints that the social network has received, it has not given a specific explanation and has limited itself to saying that it is an organic loss of accounts that were closed when it was reported that the social network had been sold to Elon Musk. That would explain the loss of followers in some profiles, but not the increase in others. "While we continue to take action on accounts that violate our spam policy, which may affect follower numbers, these fluctuations appear to be largely the result of an increase in creation and deactivation," Twitter said in a statement. of new accounts.
