Did NC Democrats or Republicans lose followers after the Elon Musk Twitter announcement?
Since the announcement that Elon Musk would takeover Twitter, many public figures and users of the platform have reported noticeable fluctuations in follower count.
Theories suggest that left-leaning account owners, like those belonging to Democrat politicians are losing followers, while conservative Twitter users, are gaining them.
While Democrat leaders experienced a 0.2% loss, accounts linked to Republicans saw an increase of about 0.8%, the Economist reports.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for instance, gained more than 150,000 followers since the news of Musk’s deal with Twitter broke on Monday. In stark contrast, her account’s daily average the week before sat around 3,000 followers per day, according to Social Blade, an analytics platform that tracks social media analytics.
Contrarily, Sen. Bernie Sanders experienced a loss of 18,800 followers. The day after the deal between Twitter and Musk was announced marked the first day this month Sanders saw any decrease in follower count..
Twitter released a statement regarding the wild fluctuations in follower counts, explaining the differential have been “organic” and not automated.
“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 have been a result of an increase in new account creation and deactivation,” Twitter said in a statement.
How Twitter accounts of NC public figures were impacted
North Carolina lawmakers like Rep. Madison Cawthorn; Sen. Richard Burr; Sen. Thom Tillis; Rep. Alma Adams; and Rep David E. Price have also seen sharp swings in follower counts.
Rep. Madison Cawthorn
Party: Republican
Daily average last week: +775
Daily average this week: +7,494
Change in followers since Monday: +29,975
Sen. Thom Tillis
Party: Republican
Daily average last week: +22
Daily average this week: +252
Change in followers since Monday: +1,008
Rep. Alma Adams
Party: Democrat
Daily average last week: +4
Daily average this week: -53
Change in followers since Monday: -158
Sen. Richard Burr
Party: Republican
Daily average last week: -5
Daily average this week: -101
Change in followers since Monday: -403
Rep. David E. Price
Party: Democrat
Daily average last week: +2
Daily average this week: -51
Change in followers since Monday: -204
