Ron DeSantis Gains Nearly 300,000 Followers Since Elon Musk Bought Twitter, Raising Suspicions of Changing Algorithms
April 28, 2022 Updated 8:53 A.M. ET
SAN FRANCISCO (FLV) – Elon Musk reached a deal with Twitter Inc. to purchase the social media giant for around $44 billion, at $54.20 per share, to take the company private in a bid to bring on a resurgence of internet free speech.
Since then, prominent conservatives have noted a stark increase in follower counts, despite Former President Donald Trump’s new social media app Truth Social surging to number 1 on the Apple App Store.
Conservatives have long argued that Twitter “shadowbans” conservatives – purposefully, but covertly, demoting particular users or phrases in the algorithms, resulting in lower account and Tweet visibility.
Since Musk bought Twitter, not only did conservatives gain followers, but are gaining as many as over 2,400% day-over-day.
According to SocialBlade, which tracks and aggregates account statistics, shows that on Monday, just before Musk and other media outlets made the announcement, DeSantis gained 5,488 followers, following a trend of 4,000-8,000 per day since earlier in April.
Even when DeSantis made national news during Florida’s Special Session where he signed a law to strip the Walt Disney Company of its self-governing Reedy Creek Improvement District, follower gains only eclipsed that of 8,000.
Beginning on Tuesday, DeSantis gained 141,566 followers. The following day, he gained 64,129. At the time of reporting on Thursday, he has gained over 80,000 followers, bringing the total to around 285,000 new followers.
Over Tuesday and Wednesday, other popular conservative figures also saw several hundred or thousand percent increases in day-over-day follower increases like Tucker Carlson who gained over 140,000, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene gained over 130,000 followers, and U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan gained over 115,000 followers, none of whom made particularly large national headlines this week.
Musk has said that Twitter “must be politically neutral” and Tweeted out a meme about a Tim Pool appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience where Pool confronted Twitter’s Jack Dorsey on “an example of Twitter’s left wing bias.”
There have been no public announcements or acknowledgements of algorithm changes or updates, but conservatives are raising suspicion that moderators have removed particular accounts or phrase from a “shadowban” on the social media platform after the news broke of Musk’s purchase.
