EXCLUSIVE Twitter is losing its most active users, internal documents show - Reuters

Oct 25 (Reuters) - "Is Twitter dying?" billionaire Elon Musk mused successful April, 5 days earlier offering to buy the societal media platform.

The reality, according to interior Twitter(TWTR.N) probe seen by Reuters, goes acold beyond the fistful of examples of celebrities ghosting their ain accounts. Twitter is struggling to support its astir progressive users - who are captious to the concern - engaged, underscoring a situation faced by the Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) main enforcement arsenic helium approaches a deadline to adjacent his $44 cardinal deal to bargain the company.

These "heavy tweeters" relationship for little than 10% of monthly wide users but make 90% of each tweets and fractional of planetary revenue. Heavy tweeters person been successful "absolute decline" since the pandemic began, a Twitter researcher wrote successful an interior papers titled “Where did the Tweeters Go?”

A "heavy tweeter" is defined arsenic idiosyncratic who logs successful to Twitter six oregon 7 days a week and tweets astir 3 to 4 times a week, the papers said.

The probe besides recovered a displacement successful interests implicit the past 2 years among Twitter's astir progressive English-speaking users that could marque the level little charismatic to advertisers.

Cryptocurrency and "not harmless for work" (NSFW) content, which includes nudity and pornography, are the highest-growing topics of involvement among English-speaking dense users, the study found.

At the aforesaid time, involvement successful news, sports and amusement is waning among those users. Tweets connected those topics, which person helped Twitter burnish an representation arsenic the world’s "digital municipality square," arsenic Musk erstwhile called it, are besides the astir desirable for advertisers.

Twitter declined to specify however galore of its tweets are successful English oregon however overmuch wealth it makes from English speakers. But the demographic is important to Twitter's business, immoderate analysts say.

The level earned much advertisement gross from the United States unsocial than each different markets combined successful its 4th quarter, according to its capitalist letter, and astir ads successful the United States are apt targeting English-speaking users, said Jasmine Enberg, an expert astatine Insider Intelligence.

Twitter's survey examined the fig of dense tweeters successful English who displayed an involvement successful a topic, based connected the accounts they followed, and however that fig of users changed implicit the past 2 years.

Twitter was motivated to analyse “disturbing” trends among users that whitethorn person been masked by wide maturation successful regular progressive users and amended recognize the diminution successful the company’s astir progressive users, the documents said. The survey made nary circumstantial conclusions astir wherefore dense users of the level are declining.

Asked to remark connected the interior documents' findings, a Twitter spokesperson said connected Monday: "We regularly behaviour probe connected a wide assortment of trends, which germinate based connected what’s happening successful the world. Our wide assemblage has continued to grow, reaching 238 cardinal mDAU successful Q2 2022," the spokesperson said, utilizing an acronym for monetizable regular progressive users.

'NOT SAFE FOR WORK' CONTENT

The fig of dense users funny successful NSFW and cryptocurrency contented grew, the probe found.

Twitter is 1 of the fewer large societal media platforms that permits nudity connected its service, and the institution has estimated that big contented constitutes 13% of Twitter, according to a abstracted interior descent presumption seen by Reuters. The presumption did not elaborate connected however the fig was calculated.

Advertisers mostly steer wide of contention oregon nudity for fearfulness of damaging their brands. Major advertisers including Dyson, PBS Kids and Forbes suspended advertizing owed to accounts that were soliciting kid pornography connected Twitter, Reuters reported successful September.

In effect to the September story, Twitter said it "has zero tolerance for kid intersexual exploitation" and was investing much resources into its enactment against specified material.

Twitter’s astir progressive English-speaking users were besides progressively funny successful cryptocurrencies, reaching an all-time precocious successful precocious 2021, the interior documents showed. But involvement successful the taxable has declined since the crypto terms clang successful June, and the survey noted cryptocurrencies whitethorn not beryllium an country of maturation successful the future.

Current and erstwhile Twitter employees who spoke with Reuters said they feared Musk’s calls for little contented moderation and his reported plans to gut the staff, which they said volition exacerbate the deterioration of the prime of content.

‘DEVASTATING’ LOSSES

Topics that person traditionally made Twitter a fashionable level for its millions of users are present successful diminution among the astir progressive English-speaking users, the documents show.

Interest successful satellite news, arsenic good arsenic wide politics, showed spikes during large events specified arsenic the onslaught connected the U.S. Capitol connected Jan. 6, 2021. But the categories person since mislaid the highest fig of dense Twitter users and person shown nary signs of recovery, the study said.

Twitter is besides losing a “devastating” percent of dense users who are funny successful manner oregon celebrities specified arsenic the Kardashian family. These users are apt decamping to rival platforms similar Meta Platforms Inc's (META.O) Instagram and ByteDance's TikTok, a Twitter researcher wrote.

The survey besides expressed astonishment astir the diminution successful involvement for e-sports and online streaming personalities, which were antecedently increasing rapidly crossed Twitter. “The large communities are present successful decline,” the study said.

“It seems arsenic though determination is simply a important discrepancy betwixt what I mightiness ideate are our institution values and our maturation patterns,” 1 Twitter researcher wrote.

Reporting by Sheila Dang successful Dallas Editing by Kenneth Li and Matthew Lewis

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