An account with over 1 million followers on X (formerly Twitter) claims that its pageviews plummeted after criticizing Elon Musk



In December 2024, it was discovered that several accounts that criticized Elon Musk, the owner of X, experienced a significant drop in the number of views. Some of them were also no longer able to use X Premium .

They Criticized Musk on X. Then Their Reach Collapsed. - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/04/23/business/elon-musk-x-suppression-laura-loomer.html

How Laura Loomer and other far-right users saw their X engagements plummet as soon as they criticized Musk | The Independent
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/laura-loomer-elon-musk-x-b2738147.html

Elon Musk's Critics on X Face the Consequences | The New Republic
https://newrepublic.com/post/194300/elon-musk-critics-x-repercussions

The decline in views of the news site The New York Times was confirmed by far-right activist and independent journalist Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) and others.

In December 2024, Loomer became embroiled in controversy after criticizing Musk over the immigrant visa issue, and shortly after that, the average number of views on X's posts fell to less than half of what it had been before. X Premium was also no longer available. About two months later, on February 4, 2025, Loomer was able to use X Premium again, and posted to Musk, 'Thank you for bringing back monetization. If you were previously subscribed to my account, please resubscribe.'



Musk responded, 'You're welcome.'



Rumer believes he lost $50,000 (approximately 7 million yen) during the X Premium suspension period.

Additionally, Loomer's colleague and physician Maria Loupis (@DrLoupis) posted on January 21, 2025 that she would sue X and Elon Musk for censoring speech at X, a company that Musk had said he wanted to make 'a home for free speech.'



Loupis also participated in a debate with Musk in late December 2024, and has provided screenshots showing that the number of views has plummeted since then.



And neither X nor Musk responded to Loupis' inquiries.



By the way, when Loupis created another account, it ended up getting more views than his original account, despite having fewer followers.

In addition, far-right activist Owen Shroyer (@OwenShroyer1776), who also joined Musk in his debate over the visa issue, also saw a sharp drop in the number of views on X and was temporarily unable to access X Premium.

As the word 'shadow' suggests, shadow bans are not something that can be easily seen as special measures being taken, so it is unclear whether such measures were actually taken. Also, the above three people were activists with many followers, so the decrease in views was clearly noticeable, but for users with fewer followers, it is not clear if they have been shadow banned without realizing it, so it is completely unclear whether X is actually taking such measures, and if so, how many people they are targeting.

The New York Times points out that Musk posted in February 2024, 'There will always be critics. What's noteworthy is that I'm not going to try to silence them, even on a platform that I own.'



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in Web Service, Posted by logc_nt