The Good Old Twitter Is Still Here

Tucker Carlson: What we learned from ‘The Twitter Files’ [Video]

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The good old Twitter is still here – and so are the twitterers, it appears

There have been many suggestions and speculations about Twitter’s future since its takeover by Musk the Mighty (yes, even more than before it happened). And the greatest doubt, as we all know, surrounded the question whether the social network would retain its audience figures from that point on. Or, to be more precise, wouldn’t the new ownership, inevitably bringing about some new rules and rather drastic changes in personnel, trigger a sort of users’ exodus? That could well force one of the major cyberspace players way down the ladder, if not straight into non-existence.

And something like that was surely predicted once and again. Quite a few celebrities and entrepreneurs openly threatened – and are still threatening – to jump this ship and switch to somewhere else. A couple or more have even done so already (or so they say). So is it a clear and present danger for Twitter by now?

Quite a few celebrities and entrepreneurs openly threatened – and are still threatening – to jump this ship and switch to somewhere else.

Well, judging by the response of Joe Everymen – which may be less famous, but remain, at the end of the day, a much more crucial audience segment for any social network than any big star – the answer appears to be “not even close”. Because cold hard (or, from Twitter’s own perspective, rather warm and fuzzy) figures suggest that regular subscribers are not going anywhere from Twitter just yet. Not en masse and not in a hurry, anyway. According to the results of several polls that surveyed users of other sites of note, such as LinkedIn or SEJ, the percentage of those intending to part ways with Twitter or having already done so doesn’t come close to 50 in any of these focus groups. The highest numbers of customers unhappy enough to leave – 34% – were produced by the aforesaid LinkedIn (though if you exclude those just “planning to” ditch the Twitter – but for some reason still staying there – it leaves much less impressive 22 percent). In other cases the amount of those set on staying is well above fifty percent, and those claiming to have moved onto pastures new (such as Mind or Mastodon, rumored to benefit greatly from these latest upheavals at Twitter) often are conspicuous by their absence. (Yes, that’s right: not a single full-blown deserter in many polls, only those stating the intent, and not all that many of those either: 10 to 12 percent at best).

According to the results of several polls that surveyed users of other sites of note, such as LinkedIn or SEJ, the percentage of those intending to part ways with Twitter or having already done so doesn’t come close to 50 in any of these focus groups.

All in all – even with quite a notable quantity of those who are yet making up their minds (somewhere between 20 and 30 percent on average) – the picture is not nearly as grim as the doomsayers would have us believe.

So what is it about Twitter – even the new, made-over Twitter which already managed to make some arguable missteps – that still keeps you around? In your own words, it is (expectedly) partly curiosity about what is to come next, partly the fact that many of you find the changes “fun”, but firstly and foremostly the users cite freedom of speech as the reason for their decision to stay. Yes, by and large you do believe that Twitter still provides it (or even has come back to this particular value). And that really bodes well for the site’s future.