Conservatives praising Musk for taking over Twitter
Fox News media analyst Howard Kurtz discusses how many conservatives are praising Elon Musk for taking control of Twitter on ‘Special Report.’
A noticeable shift in Twitter follower counts, as reported by many users over the last several days, has sent social media abuzz with numerous theories on why some accounts are rapidly losing followers, while others are gaining them.
Ranging from reactionary account deletions and activations as a result of Elon Musk’s purchase, to malfeasance on the part of Twitter’s algorithm engineers, such theories have ignited a fierce online debate as users seem to have already experienced effects of the momentous news.
"So Truth Social surges to #1 in the app store amid a wave of people on the right fleeing twitter, but also people are gaining tons of followers from people flooding back to twitter? Something doesn’t add up," Tim Pool tweeted Wednesday.
TWITTER USERS SUGGEST WHAT ELON MUSK 'SHOULD BUY NEXT,' INCLUDING DISNEY, HISTORY CHANNEL
Donald Trump Jr. asked, "Wonder if they're burning the evidence before new mgmt comes in?"
Some users pointed how prominent conservatives saw a rise in their followers. For example, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, R., acquired nearly 205,000 followers and Trump Jr. nearly 90,000 in the past few days.
Barry Rubin, a senior video editor at The Bulwark noted that while a decent amount of conservative accounts saw a boost to their followers, famous liberals took a hit.
This is not always the case, however. While notable liberal figures like former President Barack Obama and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., saw a drop in their numbers, some left-leaning accounts, such as President Biden, saw an increase (around 20,000).
NBC reporter Ben Collins asserted, without evidence, that the shift in followers was due to "apolitical" Twitter users fleeing the social media site and right-wingers joining in droves.
Others were just happy to see a jump in their followers—or upset to see they plummeted.
With theories abound, Twitter attempted to clarify the reason for the shift in a statement to NBC News.
"We’ve been looking into 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. "We’ll continue looking into these follower count fluctuations and keep you updated."
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Twitter also called the shift in followers "organic" site traffic.
Twitter did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital for comment on the widespread shift in followers.
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