Over a Million Twitter Accounts Have Been Removed or Suspended Since Musk’s Takeover

The Twitter logo is seen on a sign on the exterior of Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, Calif., on Oct. 28, 2022. (Constanza Hevia/AFP via Getty Images)

It appears that more than a million Twitter accounts have been deactivated or suspended since Elon Musk took over the company last week.

Further, many of the social media company’s top executives were fired or have quit from the company, while Musk said that he would start laying off 50 percent of the workforce on Nov. 4.

The figures came from an analysis that examined the decline in Twitter accounts before and after the purchase on Oct. 27, reported MIT Technology Review on Nov. 3.

Many Twitter users had threatened to leave the platform before the turnover, claiming that they were unhappy about the new ownership and that a significant number of users actually followed through with their threats.

Various celebrities and regular users are among those who have threatened to quit Twitter recently.

Bot Sentinel, a firm which tracks inauthentic Twitter behavior using an algorithm, reported that more than 1.3 million accounts were either deactivated or suspended between Oct. 27 and Nov. 1, after Musk confirmed his acquisition of the social media giant.

The tracking firm monitors at least 3 million accounts on Twitter, out of the total approximate 237 million “monetizable daily active users” in the system.

MIT said that Bot Sentinel found that around 877,000 accounts were deactivated and another 497,000 were suspended, which is twice more than usual.

Around 18,000 (0.59 percent) Twitter accounts were deactivated or suspended, three times the amount in the week before the purchase was completed, which was 5,958.

“We have observed an uptick in people deactivating their accounts and also Twitter suspending accounts,” said Christopher Bouzy, founder and CEO of Bot Sentinel, told MIT Technology Review.

Progressives Delete Twitter Accounts in Protest Over Musk’s Takeover

Bot Sentinel said that it came up with the figures by taking the proportion of regularly monitored Twitter users who had deactivated or had their accounts suspended post-takeover and then applying that percentage to its overall user base.

“We believe the uptick in deactivations is a result of people upset with Elon Musk purchasing Twitter and deciding to deactivate their accounts in protest,” said Bouzy.

Bouzy believes that the massive rise in account suspensions is partially due to hate speech alerts from a number of users pushing the envelope on what they can or cannot say, after Musk said he would revise Twitter’s rules on free speech.

“We also believe the increase in suspensions is from Twitter taking action on accounts purposely violating Twitter’s rules to see if they can push the limits of ‘free speech,’” said Bouzy.

He said that he does not know which those accounts suspended by Twitter have been judged to be inauthentic, such as bots, or real people who broke the platform’s rules on unacceptable speech.

Separate research from the Network Contagion Research Institute reported that use of the n-word on Twitter jumped by 500 percent within 12 hours after the purchase was finalized.

Twitter Struggles During Corporate Transition to New Ownership

Musk has restricted company access to content-moderation tools to 15 employees since the takeover, which possibly allowed for the uptick in so-called “hate speech,” according to Bloomberg. The content-moderation tools formerly allowed hundreds of staffers to remove insensitive posts.

Yoel Roth, who was retained as Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, said that the move was planned to “reduce opportunities for insider risk” during the company’s transition to new ownership.

“This is exactly what we (or any company) should be doing in the midst of a corporate transition to reduce opportunities for insider risk. We’re still enforcing our rules at scale,” Roth wrote in a tweet.

Bouzy believes that a continued exodus of progressives on Twitter will hurt it in the long run, as Musk tries to make the platform more profitable with new features.

Musk said that he plans to introduce an $8 monthly charge for blue-check verification, and a “paywalled video” feature, reported The Washington Post.

“I believe if users continue to deactivate their accounts en masse, it will become a significant problem for the platform,” Bouzy said. “If left-leaning and marginalized people leave the platform, Twitter will not differ from Parler or Truth Social,” both of which are right-leaning platforms.