Anyone who doubted that the pre-Elon Twitter had its thumb heavily on the scale for Democrats can stop wondering.
It did.
Newsweek reported earlier this week that several prominent Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz and Gov. Ron DeSantis, both of Florida, got a major bump in Twitter followers after Elon Musk completed his takeover of the social media company.
Meanwhile, accounts belonging to Democrats actually lost followers.
The report seems to vindicate long-standing complaints by conservatives that Twitter, which notoriously killed the New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop a month before the 2020 election, has been shadow-banning those on the right and slowing conservative content.
Here’s a look at what Newsweek found:
- Gov. DeSantis on Oct. 27, the day Musk took over Twitter, added 3,770 new followers. Over the next four days, he added a total of almost 148,000.
- Rep. Gaetz picked up 1,009 new followers Oct. 27. By Sunday, he had added at least another 41,000.
- Texas Sen. Ted Cruz got 1,676 new followers on Musk’s first day. Over the next two days, he scooped up another 65,380.
- Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene picked up 1,995 new followers on Oct. 27. The next day MTG added 41,520 new followers, with another 24,287 added the day after.
- Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert’s following grew by 1,848 accounts on Oct. 27. The next day another 33,897 joined them.
- Don Trump Jr. gained 3,543 new followers when Musk wandered into Twitter’s headquarters. Over the next four days, he gathered roughly 198,000 more.
- Kari Lake, the GOP candidate for governor in Arizona, padded her followers’ count by 1,618 when Musk came aboard. The following day she added 33,204 more.
Citing a report by The Economist, Newsweek noted, “Democratic House and Senate representatives lost 420,000 followers between October 27 and 30, an average of 1,600 each.”
“High-profile Democratic figures such as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Vice President Kamala Harris, and former president Barack Obama all lost thousands of followers the day after Musk’s takeover, prompting speculation that left-leaning Twitter users may have left the platform in protest of Musk’s ownership.”
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Or, alternatively, Twitter’s staff was suppressing conservatives and their content until Musk canned the company’s leadership and sent a message that he was serious about equitable free speech.
Either way, Musk has made Twitter better already.
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