I’m paraphrasing what Ben Collins is reporting tonight.  That mass exodus from your follower count yesterday?  Those were people deactivating their accounts thanks to the news that Elon Musk is buying Twitter.

SCOOP:

Some Twitter users noticed massive follower drop-offs yesterday.

Twitter just confirmed to @NBCNews that this activity was organic, not automated.

In short: The same day Elon Musk bought Twitter, a lot of people deactivated their accounts.

Twitter's Statement below. pic.twitter.com/V7is7tZYq2

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) April 27, 2022

New from me:

On the day Elon Musk announced his Twitter takeover, 200,000 Katy Perry followers deactivated.

Marjorie Taylor Greene gained 90,000 followers.

Twitter confirmed to @NBCNews: It wasn’t bots.

Apolitical users fled. Right-wing users joined.https://t.co/gxBWpxq1uG

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) April 27, 2022

Twitter was flooded with user reports of high-profile accounts losing thousands of followers in the hours after news broke that Tesla CEO Elon Musk would purchase the social network, but the company said Tuesday that the “fluctuations in follower counts” came from “organic” account closures.

Some accounts on the political right, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, saw follower counts skyrocket.

Greene, who boasted 539,000 followers the day before news of Musk’s takeover, had 632,000 followers by Tuesday evening.

Twitter did not provide an exact number of accounts that were shuttered or activated in the hours after the ownership announcement Monday, but it said it was looking into the “recent fluctuations in follower counts.”

“While we continue to take action on accounts that violate our spam policy which can affect follower counts, these fluctuations appear to largely be a result of an increase in new account creation and deactivation,” Twitter said in a statement.

A spokesperson at Twitter who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that the accounts that experienced the most severe dropoff in followers were “high-profile accounts.”

Pop star Katy Perry, the third-most followed account on Twitter, lost more than 200,000 after the announcement.

Some right-wing politicians noticed and lauded the development of increased follower counts Tuesday.

“It really is something how conservative accounts are getting massive follower increases today,” tweeted Rep. Matt Gaetz of Flordia.

The bolstered follower counts of the right-wing was not limited to the American right. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing populist, gained almost 90,000 followers in the day after Musk’s announcement.

 

President Barack Obama lost 300k yesterday, too.

What a time to be alive.

The Alt-Right decided to change its Twitter principles when Elon Musk bought Twitter.

The Alt-Left picked up their ball and went home.  

Elon Musk is an asshole and a socially disabled tool, but the story is more about how stupid we are than anything else.

A portion of us wants to live in a preventive world where social media platforms create barriers to prevent others from consuming content THEY don’t like.

Another portion thinks they shouldn’t be held accountable for anything they say, and it’s their God-given right to say it regardless of the outcome.

Both portions are minuscule, but they dominate the news cycle every day, and I could give a fuck about either of them. Millions of losers activated/deactivated their Twitter accounts based on how much they like/hate one person.   Some accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers that drive HUGE revenue left Twitter yesterday because they hate Elon Musk and think he’ll turn Twitter into a Klan meeting.

Millions joined yesterday because they love him and think they’ll be able to advocate for ivermectin enemas while telling black people to fuck off.

All of it is small brain shit.

I thought we’d go a week or two before people decided, but there’s a reason we call them ALL extremists.  They make highly emotional decisions based on a feeling instead of making an informed decision based on actual data, but that’s too fucking hard when you can’t apply reason to your emotional lizard brains.

One side runs away from the possibility of being hurt; the other runs toward it because they want to hurt people based on what they think one person will do, and I find that weak AF regardless of what side of the ledger you’re on.

We like Twitter because we manage it.  Regardless of who owns it, you can do the same.  More assholes? Block more.  We’re still going to use it to engage with you to bring you free content.  We’ll still call shit out, but in no way will this exodus or influx of HUGE losers affect what we are here to do.

If this is about free speech, I say we take this new platform for a fucking spin with this GiveSendGo donor link.

It works both ways, kids.

DB