A recent survey by Pew Research Center has revealed that Twitter’s top users have been posting less since Musk took over as the CEO of the micro-blogging company.
The Center’s new analysis of actual behavior on the site discovered that the most active users before Musk’s acquisition, defined as the top 20% by tweet volume, have seen a noticeable posting decline. These users’ average number of tweets per month declined by around 25% following Musk’s acquisition.
In the U.S. about six in ten who have used Twitter in the past year said they have recently taken breaks from the platform, and a quarter of the users disclosed that they will not use Twitter a year from now.
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On average, adult Twitter users in the U.S. mentioned Musk in a tweet just once between Jan. 1 and April 13, 2022, before he announced his intention to acquire the platform. On the other hand, eight in ten of the most active adult Twitter users between Jan. 1 and April 14, 2022, have remained among the most active users in the months after Musk formally acquired the site in October 2022.
Recall that in November 2022, an analysis of Twitter accounts suggested that more than a million users left the platform in the week following Elon Musk’s takeover.
The firm Bot Sentinel, which tracks inauthentic behavior on Twitter by analyzing more than 3.1 million accounts and their activity daily, found that 11,535 accounts they were monitoring had been deactivated.
Elon Musk’s approach to managing Twitter since buying it has been as unpredictable as he has been carrying out a series of revamps on the social media platform. During his takeover of the company, Musk has downsized a huge percentage of the platform staff, floated a change to user verification, and is reportedly considering a number of moves that would represent a widespread overhaul of the service if carried out.
Also, his series of revamps have seen several companies which includes Audi, Volkswagen, and Pfizer suspend advertising on the platform over concerns about Musk’s content moderation plans.
The number of global monthly users is predicted to fall by nearly 4% next year and 5% in 2024 more than 32 million in total in the first annual declines forecast by the market research agency Insider Intelligence since it began tracking the social media platform in 2008.
Following his reign as the CEO of the company, Elon Musk promised he would resign as Twitter’s chief executive when he finds someone “foolish enough to take the job”. The decision came after he promised to abide by the result of a Twitter poll which saw a massive amount of users vote ‘yes’ to him quitting the role.
In a recent development, he has announced a new Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino just six months after his controversial takeover of the social media company. Hopefully, her reign will lead to an increase in the engagement of Twitter users.