The wave of firings, the suspension of accounts of influential journalists and the pro-Trump stances of Elon Musk – who was quick to reinstate the former president’s account suspended in January 2021 after the Capitol attack by its supporters – have had an impact on the number of Twitter subscribers in the United States. A survey conducted between June 2022 and January 2023 among more than 21,000 people by the universities of Northwestern, Harvard, Rutgers, and Northeastern shows a certain disaffection of Americans with regard to the social network since its takeover by the turbulent billionaire, at the end of october.
The weight of local Twittos on all registered users in the world has thus fallen from 32% to 30% due to the withdrawal of Democratic voters who now represent only 33% of the American contingent against 38% previously. The quotas of their Republican (25%) and independent (31%) counterparts remain broadly unchanged. More than 76% of Democratic users explain that they do not trust Elon Musk and Twitter against 67% for independents and 47% for Republicans. The latter note that, since the fall, anti-conservative bias has declined significantly on the network while the other side notes an increase in bias against progressive ideas.
With the effective restoration this weekend of Donald Trump’s Facebook (34 million subscribers) and Instagram (23 million subscribers) accounts, the Meta group should improve its brand image with supporters of the former president who considered until then, for 52% of them, that the platform had a negative a priori with regard to the conservatives. The exile from Mar-a-Lago has no intention of abandoning his Truth social network for the moment, but the approach of the 2024 presidential election could make him change his mind.
