Barack Obama Loses Hundreds of Thousands Of Followers After Elon Musk Buys Twitter
Following Musk’s takeover, Twitter’s most followed user, Barack Obama, lost plenty of followers.
Ever since Elon Musk acquired the company, people have been leaving Twitter at alarming rates. According to reports, the follower counts of prominent users like former President Barack Obama and Katy Perry have been experiencing a significant drop in followers.
Obama’s Twitter followers have dropped by 300,000 since last Monday. Perry, who had 108.8 million followers before, is said to have lost 200,000 followers. And the incident is allegedly tied to Elon Musk’s estimated $44 billion purchase.
While the popular social media platforms do a routine cleanse every now and then to get rid of fake accounts and bots, experts have confirmed what is happening on Twitter these days is organic. Those accounts were legit, indicating they had been exiting the platform by themselves.
But Twitter said that the huge drop in followers was because people were making new accounts and then deleting them.
On the other hand, the number of people who support Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has increased by 100,000. Along with Mr. Greene, Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro’s followers have grown to 90,000.
Either way, the CEO of Tesla Inc. is apparently on a mission to alter the Twitter narrative. As AfroTech initially reported that Must had once said that if he were to own the app one day, then he would make it a platform that is open for ‘free speech.’
“I think it is inevitable to have an inclusive arena for free speech,” the business mogul said. “It is really important that people have knowledge regarding reality as well as their perceptions.” “They should be free to talk freely without exceeding the law.”
He further said that if people were looking for less freedom, then they should ask the government accordingly. Professor of management and organization Nour Kteily is said to have said that the so-called “free speech” arguments are not political.
Musk has also stressed the growth of the Donald Trump-founded social network, Truth Social. The app has dethroned both Twitter and TikTok from the Apple Store. But although Twitter is not leading in the Apple Store, it is still not that far behind. Twitter comes only second to Truth Social and not to any other apps in the Apple Store. However, in the chart, Twitter is far behind Instagram and Facebook.
She further added, “Research puts forward that free speech arguments are often encouraged when the one speaking utters what we want to hear,” and vice versa.
“Often, free speech arguments have been used particularly to protect marginalized and disadvantaged groups, including the statements that are banned on platforms like Twitter and Facebook, in the name of hate speech,” she concluded.
However, when Musk took power, hundreds of thousands of Twitter users who had been using the app without issue deactivated their accounts, ostensibly to express their displeasure with the changes made by Musk.
As per LifestyleUG’s most followed Twitter accounts list, Katy Perry was the fourth-most followed Twitter user, but since losing a significant number of followers, she has dropped out of the top 5. Apparently, the Blank Space singer Taylor Swift has also been going through the same thing, losing 15,000 followers in just 2 days.
The changes were not equally distributed, some have lost while others have gained. Ted Cruz, the Republican senator, added more than 60,000 followers, and Michelle Obama lost a lot.
Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, has gained roughly 10,000 followers, while Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, has lost over 1k.
Famous people who have lost or gained followers in the last few days include Ted Cruze (up by 61,261 followers), Harry Styles (up by 6,337 followers), Piers Morgan (up by 875 followers), Mike Cernowich (up by 16,730 followers), Neera Tanden (down by 983 followers), Jeremy Corbyn (down by 1,172 followers), and Barack Obama (down by 5,063 followers), Michelle Obama (down by 19,975), Taylor Swift (down by 10,180).
