An American social media analytics company says that since Elon Musk became the owner of Twitter, the platform may have lost as many as 1 million users.
The world's richest man spent $44 billion to take control of the company and immediately announced some drastic changes. In addition to warning that he would bring Donald Trump back to the platform, Elon Musk said that users must pay to get the blue "verification" label of the account.
Reuters also reported that internal staff have received an e-mail informing them that the layoffs will begin this Friday. According to the news agency, about 3,700 people, or half of the staff, may be laid off.
The company "Bot Sentinel" says that it has analyzed over 3.1 million accounts in their daily activity and according to it, 877 thousand have been closed and 497 thousand have been suspended between October 27 and November 1. According to the company, Twitter has about 237 million daily accounts from which it derives revenue. According to the company VPNOverview, searches for the phrase "How to delete Twitter" increased by 500% between October 24-31.
Also, Twitter has suspended some of the news verification functions shared on the platform. This has sparked widespread criticism from political figures in the US who claim that Twitter will be used for fake news and disinformation during the midterm elections where they are competing for control of Congress and the Senate.
The South African billionaire has also received numerous criticisms for the introduction of the "verification" payment.
The famous American writer Stephen King declared that he would leave the platform if this was done, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said a day ago that he would negotiate with Elon Musk for the price.
While US congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio Cortez called this plan ridiculous: "A billionaire trying to sell people free speech...", she said.