• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Mail

“Is Twitter dying?” billionaire Elon Musk mused in April, five days before offering to buy the social media platform.

The reality, according to internal Twitter research seen by the Reuters news agency, goes far beyond the handful of examples of celebrities ghosting their own accounts. Twitter is struggling to keep its most active users – who are vital to the business – engaged, underscoring a challenge faced by the Tesla Inc chief executive as he approaches a deadline to close his $44bn deal to buy the company.

These “heavy tweeters” account for less than 10 percent of monthly overall users but generate 90 percent of all tweets and half of global revenue. Heavy tweeters have been in “absolute decline” since the pandemic began, a Twitter researcher wrote in an internal document titled “Where did the Tweeters Go?”

A “heavy tweeter” is defined as someone who logs in to Twitter six or seven days a week and tweets about three to four times a week, the document said.

The research also found a shift in interests over the past two years among Twitter’s most active English-speaking users that could make the platform less attractive to advertisers.

Cryptocurrency and “not safe for work” (NSFW) content, which includes nudity and pornography, are the highest-growing topics of interest among English-speaking heavy users, the report found.

At the same time, interest in news, sports and entertainment is waning among those users. Tweets on those topics, which have helped Twitter burnish an image as the world’s “digital town square,” as Musk once called it, are also the most desirable for advertisers.

Twitter declined to specify how many of its tweets are in English or how much money it makes from English speakers. But the demographic is important to Twitter’s business, some analysts say.

The platform earned more advertisement revenue from the United States alone than all other markets combined in its fourth quarter, according to its investor letter, and most advertisements in the US are likely targeting English-speaking users, said Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at Insider Intelligence.

Twitter’s study examined the number of heavy tweeters in English who displayed an interest in a topic, based on the accounts they followed, and how that number of users changed over the past two years.

Bet9ja ⚽ Get a promo code of about 55% … Click now!!

Twitter was motivated to investigate “disturbing” trends among users that may have been masked by overall growth in daily active users and better understand the decline in the company’s most active users, the documents said. The study made no specific conclusions about why heavy users of the platform are declining.

“We regularly conduct research on a wide variety of trends, which evolve based on what’s happening in the world. Our overall audience has continued to grow, reaching 238 million mDAU in Q2 2022,” said a Twitter spokesperson on Monday when asked to comment on the internal documents’ findings, using an acronym for monetisable daily active users.

‘Not safe for work’ content
The number of heavy users interested in NSFW and cryptocurrency content grew, the research found.

Twitter is one of the few leading social media platforms that permit nudity on their services, and the company has estimated that adult content constitutes 13 percent of Twitter, according to a separate internal slide presentation seen by Reuters. The presentation did not elaborate on how the figure was calculated.

Advertisers generally steer clear of controversy or nudity for fear of damaging their brands. Major advertisers, including Dyson, PBS Kids and Forbes, suspended advertising due to accounts that were soliciting child pornography on Twitter, Reuters reported in September.

In response to the September story, Twitter said it “has zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation” and was investing more resources into its work against such material.

Twitter’s most active English-speaking users were also increasingly interested in cryptocurrencies, reaching an all-time high in late 2021, the internal documents showed. But interest in the topic has declined since the crypto price crash in June, and the study noted cryptocurrencies may not be an area of growth in the future.

Current and former Twitter employees who spoke with Reuters said they feared Musk’s calls for less content moderation and his reported plans to gut the staff, which they said will exacerbate the deterioration of the quality of content.

‘Devastating’ losses
Topics that have traditionally made Twitter a popular platform for its millions of users are now in decline among the most active English-speaking users, the documents show.

Interest in world news, as well as liberal politics, showed spikes during major events such as the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. But the categories have since lost the highest number of heavy Twitter users and have shown no signs of recovery, the report said.

Twitter is also losing a “devastating” percentage of heavy users who are interested in fashion or celebrities such as the Kardashian family. These users are likely decamping to rival platforms like Meta Platforms Inc’s Instagram and ByteDance’s TikTok, a Twitter researcher wrote.

The study also expressed surprise about the decline in interest in e-sports and online streaming personalities, which were previously growing quickly across Twitter. “The big communities are now in decline,” the report said.

“It seems as though there is a significant discrepancy between what I might imagine are our company values and our growth patterns,” one Twitter researcher wrote.

URGENT NEWS: Nigerians can now earn in US Dollars from home, let’s show you how our client earned $13,000 (₦9,600,000.00) on a premium domain name within 2 weeks of acquisition. Click here

PROFITABLE FOREX, BITCOIN AND BINARY TRADER. Do you require the service of a tested, trusted and experienced trader who can help you trade your online Forex, Bitcoin and Binary accounts for minimum 10-20% weekly profit?. Click here for details www.standfx.com, WhatsApp: +2348030797998

97yo Nigerian: I Don’t Get Sick Because I Clean My Veins

Rich sugar daddies in Lagos | No connection fee

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Mail

Twitter’s new buyer Elon Musk still must have his tweets about his electric car company Tesla pre-approved after a US judge on Wednesday rejected an appeal to free him from oversight.

Musk last month filed a motion to overturn Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) restrictions imposed following his 2018 tweet, in which he said he had acquired funding to take Tesla private, but did not provide proof or file paperwork with the securities regulator.

The tweet, which caused share prices to fluctuate wildly, was ruled to be “false and misleading” and shareholders have accused Tesla of securities fraud.

more on SCI & TECH
————————————–

Science & Technology

Landlord Sues Twitter Over ‘Unpaid Rent’ On London Office.

Jan 24, 2023 at 6:51 pm

Science & Technology

Donald Trump returns to Twitter after Elon Musk hint.

Nov 20, 2022 at 7:27 am

Science & Technology

Impersonation: Twitter will permanently ban “parody” accounts – Elon Musk

Nov 7, 2022 at 8:52 pmNov 7, 2022 at 10:08 pm

The SEC also charged Musk with fraud and ordered him to step down as chair of Tesla’s board of directors, pay a $20 million fine and, after another unfortunate tweet in early 2019, demanded his tweets directly related to business of the company be pre-approved by a competent lawyer.

Musk said he was forced to agree to the deal, and denies lying to shareholders.

However, “Musk’s claim that he was the victim of economic duress is wholly unpersuasive,” Judge Lewis Liman wrote in his ruling.

The judge said Musk’s argument that the SEC has used the agreement “to harass him” and investigate his speech is “meritless” and “particularly ironic,” since free speech rights do not allow him to make statements that are “considered fraudulent” or violate securities laws.

“Musk cannot now seek to retract the agreement he knowingly and willingly entered by simply bemoaning that he felt like he had to agree to it at the time but now — once the specter of the litigation is a distant memory and his company has become, in his estimation, all but invincible — wishes that he had not.”

The judge also rejected Musk’s request to quash part of the SEC’s demand for documents about his November 6, 2021 tweet calling for followers to vote on whether he should sell 10 percent of his Tesla stock.

The tweet sent the company’s share price lower, and the SEC wants to know if it was approved as required. The agency also is investigating possible insider trading after Musk’s brother — a Tesla board member — sold $108 million in the car-maker’s stock a day before the poll.

Musk’s headline-grabbing deal to buy Twitter comes with a clause specifying that he is free to tweet about the pending $44 billion merger provided his posts “do not disparage the company or any of its representatives,” a copy filed with US regulators shows.

That did not stop Musk on Wednesday from tweeting his displeasure with content moderation moves made by Twitter’s top attorney Vijaya Gadde who is seen as a moral champion of the platform.

Musk additionally tweeted a meme critical of Gadde

Drink This Homemade Juice Everyday And Punish Your Woman – She Would Come Back Again

Do this at least once a day for a brighter vision even at 80.

| RECENTLY ADDED

2023 General Elections

While all schools are to be shut ahead of 2023 elections, FG list schools that should be left open.

Africas

Group demands disbandment of Ebubeagu in Ebonyi.

Criminal Case

Police arraign two for alleged rail tracks theft in Benue.

Business Today

NGX: Market cap down by -0.05% as investors lose over N17bn in 5 hours.

Politics Today

Enugu APGA guber candidate, Frank Nweke, dismisses reports on endorsement of Tinubu.

Rich sugar daddies in Lagos | No connection fee

97yo Nigerian: I Don’t Get Sick Because I Clean My Veins