Yesterday, Elon Musk succeeded in buying Twitter and there were reports that the site’s code had been locked to prevent anyone making any sudden changes, possibly as some kind of protest. To me that suggested that nothing much would change between now and whenever Musk’s team comes in to start making changes. But today I noticed some people on the left complaining that they’d suddenly lost a lot of followers.

Just lost 2000 followers. Anyone else losing followers?

— Neera Tanden🌻 (@neeratanden) April 25, 2022

Any other people out there losing followers, today?

Wow. People quitting this platform for real.

— Ana Navarro-Cárdenas (@ananavarro) April 26, 2022

I’ve lost about 3000 followers

— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) April 26, 2022

I’ve lost over 300 followers so far today… Is Twitter finally cleaning up trolls?

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) April 25, 2022

I lost nearly 4k followers on Twitter yesterday, and gained nearly 1k on Facebook.

If you are unsure, it’s an alternative until we find something better than both, which I believe will be soon.

I have managed to grow a huge community there that is a safe space for discussion.

— Amy Siskind 🏳️‍🌈 (@Amy_Siskind) April 26, 2022

I lost more than 1,500 followers today after the news broke about Elon Musk buying Twitter. The question is whether they were real people or mostly bots.

Who else lost a lot of followers today? And what do you think — real or bots?

— Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) April 25, 2022

I’ve lost about 1K followers since yesterday morning.

— Olivia Julianna (@0liviajulianna) April 26, 2022

Musk buys Twitter and I just lost over 300 Twitter followers. Are people really leaving or did Twitter try to get rid of bots before Musk takes over?

— (((DeanObeidallah))) (@DeanObeidallah) April 25, 2022

Is anyone else losing followers too? I'm seeing people across Twitter report they have lost thousands today. I am down 5,000. Though much of that could be because I'm an idiot with way too many followers. Idk

— David Hogg 🌻 (@davidhogg111) April 25, 2022

Mark Hamill, who sometimes tweets about politics, noticed it as well.

Nah, I don't think so. A bunch of us have lost followers (I lost 4,000 today). I think Twitter is doing a purge or something.

— BrooklynDad_Defiant! (@mmpadellan) April 25, 2022

I'm down about the same (proportionately) – around 1800. Can't tell if it's dead bots or people afraid that Elon will find out they were following me

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) April 25, 2022

Lots of progressive accounts independently noticing that something is happening because they are suddenly losing a lot of followers. No one seems to know why. I thought it was odd because over the last 24 hours I actually gained followers. It wasn’t a lot but it was more than I’ve picked up in months. And when I mentioned this on Twitter others said they’d seen the same thing.

Seen some people on the left complain about suddenly losing followers. Some say it's bots other say people are leaving Twitter.

Meanwhile I've gained more followers in the past day than I have in the past several months combined. Maybe that's just a coincidence?

— John Sexton (@verumserum) April 26, 2022

I suspect that Melber's dials have been dialed back. 🙂https://t.co/M17rUGzTiq

— Ed Morrissey (@EdMorrissey) April 26, 2022

I think I've jumped about 500 in the past day.

— Jon Gabriel (@exjon) April 26, 2022

So at this point there seems to be a pattern forming where progressives are losing followers and some conservatives are gaining them. And then I came across these tweets which really confirmed this is not a fluke.

🤖Exclusive: Over the past 24 hours, Democrats have experienced a significant decrease in followers, while Republicans have experienced a significant increase in followers… pic.twitter.com/jOg0or4bKS

— Christopher Bouzy (@cbouzy) April 26, 2022

Here’s a blow up of recent data for Hillary Clinton’s account. She suddenly lost 17,000 followers yesterday.

Speaker Pelosi lost more than 13,000:

Meanwhile on the other side of the aisle, Ron DeSantis gained nearly 100,000.

I can understand Left-leaning accounts deciding to close their accounts after the Elon Musk news, but why the sudden significant increase in Republican followers? This is not normal. pic.twitter.com/33P48sSROa

— Christopher Bouzy (@cbouzy) April 26, 2022

Here’s the DeSantis page:

And Ted Cruz gained more than 50,000:

And the pattern just keeps going. Bernie Sanders lost nearly 20,000 followers yesterday. And Elizabeth Warren lost nearly 18,000:

We also looked at @MSNBC hosts vs @FoxNews hosts, and it is the same. MSNBC hosts lost followers while Fox News hosts gained a significant number of followers. pic.twitter.com/O3R9FA3MOs

— Christopher Bouzy (@cbouzy) April 26, 2022

Rachel Maddow lost nearly 19,000 but Tucker Carlson gained more than 60,000:

Christopher Bouzy says nothing like this has happened in the past four years.

And this is definitely not a bot purge.

— Christopher Bouzy (@cbouzy) April 26, 2022

So what is going on here? No one seems to know. Some are arguing that this is the result of invigorated conservatives signing back up for Twitter while discouraged progressives are heading for the exit. But if that’s so, how do you explain this?

That doesn't explain Jair Bolsonaro gaining over 42,000 in a day. https://t.co/YjYFrS1sF9

— Christopher Bouzy (@cbouzy) April 26, 2022

Bolsonaro is the President of Brazil. Are Brazilians responding to the Musk Twitter news? Maybe they are but it seems harder to explain. I’m not trying to start any conspiracy theories but you have to admit it looks like someone at Twitter HQ just decided to take their finger off the scale. Whether that was an actual choice made by people running the software or just the collective impact of removing a chilling effect, something has clearly changed even though Musk hasn’t actually gained control of Twitter yet.