There are many old Twitter users who have been very unhappy since Elon Musk took over and renamed the social network X. On the one hand, people are upset about changes that are not liked (from how to buy verifications to lots of bots and non-existent moderation despite outright criminal offenses), and on the other hand, many people have problems with Musk himself, who is never afraid to share conspiracy theories and often gets fact checks added from his own service.
We’ve known for a long time that Twitter/X has lost a lot of value since Musk took over, but now the Financial Times adds to that with a new report showing how the service is shrinking fast. In the US, the number of daily users has fallen by 20% since last year, while in the UK the fall is more than 30% (eight million daily users a year ago against 5.6 million today).
Financial Times writes that Twitter/X users who leave are largely choosing to go to Threads in particular, but also Bluesky (which is growing fastest in terms of percentage). One consequence of this is that social media echo chambers are increasingly being created, where those who like Musk and MAGA are more likely to be found on X/Twitter, while those who do not are emigrating to other platforms
The danger, of course, is that if you choose your social media based on like-minded views, you will be met with back-patting and users who confirm what you think, while you are rarely exposed to people who think differently. So, as the Financial Times rightly points out, it seems that the already poor climate of debate between left and right in many areas could be further divided, creating camps that have absolutely no understanding of each other and fueling the discord.
How do you see this development and are you surprised that Twitter/X has lost so many users?