A researcher who runs a website that works “to help fight disinformation and targeted harassment” says overnight Democrats on Twitter lost “significant” numbers of followers, while some Republicans, like Gov. Ron DeSantis, gained huge numbers. The massive swings in followers, based on what he says is his four years of data, is “not normal.”
DeSantis, for example, mysteriously gained over 96,000 followers in the hours after Twitter’s board announced it had accepted billionaire Elon Musk’s $44 billion buyout offer.
Christopher Bouzy, who founded and runs BotSentinel.com, sounded the alarm:
According to the above document, it looks like DeSantis gains on average around 4000 or 5000 new followers daily. 96,500 new followers certainly would be “not normal.”
Former President Barack Obama’s Twitter account, according to Bouzy’s stats, looks like it gains about 15,000-20,000 new accounts daily. Overnight he shows a loss of 5063. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, probably the right’s favorite target, gains a few thousand followers daily. Overnight she lost over 17,000. U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another favorite target for the right, generally picks up maybe 1000 on average per day. On Monday she lost 16,038, and on Tuesday she’s already lost over 11,000 more. Speaker Nancy Pelosi gains a few hundred daily. Overnight? A loss of 13,438.
Anecdotally, many liberals on Twitter also complained of losing large numbers of followers overnight. (Personally, I lost about 150-200, give or take, I don’t keep track.)
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Twitter occasionally purges bots and other nefarious accounts, which might explain the drop on the left – but does not explain the huge increase on the right. Bouzy specifically says, “this is definitely not a bot purge.”
To that point, The Washington Post also reports that Twitter “said it would prevent employees from making any changes to Twitter’s service until Friday, according to Bloomberg News.”
And it’s not just politicians:
Or even just Americans:
The Auschwitz Memorial says it lost 35,000 followers overnight:
Obama administration official Neera Tanden, whose nomination to be the powerful director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) was derailed by the right, tweeted she had lost 2000 followers overnight.
Actor Mark Hammill, who certainly appears to be very liberal, says he lost 8000:
Activist David Hogg says he lost 5000:
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Image by Esther Vargas via Flickr and a CC license