The number of people using Twitter in the US has dropped nearly 9% since Elon Musk took office, according to a recent study. In October 2022, just before Musk took ownership, according to the study, 32.4% of Americans used Twitter. In December and January, that figure had dropped to 29.5%.
The survey of nearly 25,000 Americans was conducted by the COVID States Projecta joint research initiative of Northeastern University, Harvard University, Rutgers University, and Northwestern University that publishes reports on epidemiology, public opinion polling, and the social sciences.
The drop in users was mainly due to Democrats, who left Twitter at a higher rate than independents or Republicans. Thirty-eight percent of those who identified as Democrats used Twitter in October, but that dropped to 32.9% in January. The change in Republicans and independent users was statistically insignificant, the study found.
David Lazer, a professor of political science and computer science at Northeastern University and part of the consortium of academics that organized the study, told BuzzFeed News he was surprised by the survey’s findings. “I would have expected the Democrats to have stopped using Twitter because Musk has said some very partisan things,” he said. “It’s remarkable that he wasn’t accompanied by a Republican surge.”
Although Musk has described himself as independent, he has tweeted things that align him with the right (such as a conspiracy theory about the attack on Paul Pelosi), interacted with far-right accounts like TikTok’s Libs, restored the accounts of notable far-right personalities like Andrew Anglin and Laura Loomer, and lamented the existence of an “awakened mind virus.”
Lazer told BuzzFeed News that the survey would be biased toward people who have social media accounts, since the survey itself was conducted online. (research benchfor example, found that only about 23% of people in the US say they use Twitter).
The study also looked at sentiment about the trustworthiness of Twitter and Musk, as well as the perceived bias of the platform. Unsurprisingly, people who identified as Democrats trusted Musk less. Forty-eight percent said they don’t trust him “at all” to do the right thing, and another 28% said they don’t trust him “too much.”
