Twitter is losing its most active users, internal documents show

The reality, according to internal Twitter research seen by Reuters, is much more than just examples of celebrities viewing their own accounts. Twitter is struggling to keep its most active users — who are critical to business — engaged, underscoring a challenge facing the Tesla Inc chief executive as he spends his $44 billion buyout of the company. The deadline for closing the deal is nearing.

These “heavy tweeters” account for less than 10% of total monthly users, but generate 90% of all tweets and half of global revenue. Massive tweeters have been in “complete decline” since the pandemic began, a Twitter researcher wrote in an internal document titled “Where did the tweeters go?”

The document states that a “heavy tweeter” is defined as someone who logs into Twitter six or seven days a week and tweets three to four times a week.

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

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

At the same time, the interest of those users in news, sports and entertainment is decreasing. Tweets on topics that have helped Twitter ignite an image of the world’s “digital town square,” as Musk once said, are also the most desirable to advertisers.

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

According to its investor letter, the platform generated more advertising revenue from the United States alone than all other markets combined in its fourth quarter, and the majority of ads in the United States are targeting English-speaking users, an analyst at Insider said. Jasmine Annberg said intelligence.

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

The documents said Twitter was prompted to investigate “disturbing” trends among users, which may have been masked by an overall increase in daily active users and better accounted for the decline in the company’s most active users. can understand from The study did not draw any specific conclusions about why heavy users of the platform are declining.

Asked to comment on the findings of internal documents, a Twitter spokesperson said on Monday: “We regularly research a variety of trends, which evolve based on what is happening in the world. Our Total viewership continues to grow, reaching 238 million. mDAU in Q2 2022,” the spokesperson said, using an acronym for monetized daily active users.

‘Not safe for work’ content

The research found that the number of heavy users interested in NSFW and cryptocurrency content increased.

Twitter is one of the few major social media platforms that allows nudity on its service, and the company has estimated that adult content accounts for 13% of Twitter, according to a separate internal slide presentation seen by Reuters. The presentation did not elaborate on how the figure was calculated.

Advertisers usually shy away from controversy or nudity for fear of harming their brand. Major advertisers including Dyson, PBS Kids and Forbes suspended advertising on Twitter because of accounts soliciting child pornography, Reuters reported in September.

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

Internal documents show that even the most active English-speaking users of Twitter were increasingly interested in the cryptocurrency, reaching an all-time high in late 2021. But interest in this topic has waned since the crypto price crash in June, and the study says that 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 reduced content moderation and his reported plans to harass employees, which they said would exacerbate the decline in content quality.

‘Disastrous’ damage

Documents show that the topics that have traditionally made Twitter a popular platform for its millions of users are now declining in the most active English-speaking users.

Interest in liberal politics, along with world news, appeared to spike during major events such as the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. But the categories have since lost the heaviest Twitter users and have shown no signs of recovery, the report said.

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

The study also expressed surprise about the decline in interest for e-sports and online streaming celebrities, which previously had been rapidly spreading across Twitter. “Large communities are now in decline,” the report said.

“There seems to be a significant discrepancy between what I can imagine our company values ​​and our growth patterns,” wrote one Twitter researcher.

This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed.