Twitter has undergone a massive “organic” shutdown and major changes in following some of the platform’s most popular users after Elon Musk agreed to buy the social media giant for $44 billion.
According to an NBC News report on Tuesday, the number of followers of some of Twitter’s most popular accounts, including former President Barack Obama, singers Katy Perry and Taylor Swift, has dropped by hundreds of thousands. Obama, who is Twitter’s most popular user with 131.7 million subscribers, reduced his number of followers by 300,000 on Monday. Perry, who has 108.8 million followers, lost 200,000.
Twitter regularly cleans the platform of bots and fake accounts, which can lead to a drop in followers, but the company confirmed to NBC News that recent downtimes were “organic” rather than automated or removing bots, which which means hundreds of followers thousands of user accounts have been deleted. voluntarily deactivated. .
Instead, the number of prominent right-wing politicians and celebrity supporters showed a huge increase in the days following the news of Musk’s transfer. NBC News reports that controversial Republican Party spokeswoman Marjorie Taylor Green has seen her follower count hit 100,000, while far-right Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro has gained 90,000 followers since Monday.
The takedown comes after Twitter users became concerned that Musk’s maximalist approach to free speech would lead to a change in content moderation on the platform and less harsh policies regarding the return of extremist political groups and banned users.
“My strong intuitive opinion is that having a public platform of maximum credibility and wide inclusion is extremely important for the future of civilization; “I don’t care about the economy,” Musk said at a TED conference in Vancouver on April 14.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
