Donald Trump Is Losing Thousands of Twitter Followers After Election Defeat

Donald Trump has lost Twitter followers every day this week, with more than 46,000 accounts abandoning his profile since November 22.

His days in the White House are numbered in the wake of his defeat to Joe Biden, but Trump has continued to spread misinformation about the election on Twitter, leading to speculation he could be swiftly banned from the platform after he leaves office.

Now it seems at least some of his 88 million-plus Twitter followers may have had enough, with his follower count having dropped for four consecutive days.

Almost 10,000 Twitter accounts have unfollowed today so far, according to social media analytics platform Social Blade. On November 24, his count dropped by 12,476. On November 23, it fell by 5,979 and, on November 22, it tumbled by 19,164.

In comparison, Biden's Twitter growth appears to be surging—although his 19.8 million follower count still lags far behind Trump. Today, Biden's account has gained more than 130,000 followers, according to Social Blade.

While the exodus on Trump's account could be attributed to a purge of "bot" accounts, the man behind a social media campaign hoping to persuade Twitter users to ditch Trump's profile says the "slow trickle" of unfollows do not seem to match that theory.

Andrew Lazar, who is spearheading the UnfollowThePres project, is recording how many people are now dropping Trump's account. And unlike Twitter's approach to the president, which has recently focused on flagging posts as "disputed," Lazar told Newsweek that the aim is to "take away his favorite toy."

Lazar previously ran an experiment called SuspendThePres that tested how Facebook and Twitter moderated the president's posts in comparison to typical users.

His latest campaign is run manually with the help of analytics from an app called Tweetbot and has gained close to 15,000 followers since its launch on Tuesday.

According to Lazar, Trump's Twitter following appeared to peak at about 88.9 million this week before starting to fall—broadly echoing Social Blade's figures.

Lazar told Newsweek: "By January, he will no longer be relevant to our national conversation. His Twitter account, however, still gives him enormous influence. He's using that influence to continue to divide our country. I mean, the guy can't concede a loss and wants to broadcast false fraud claims to his adherents. It's dangerous.

"Since Twitter is just putting up some meaningless flags, I say we as the Twitter community have the power and obligation to turn down his volume and we should do so. Remove his amplification and you help dial down the power of his rhetoric."

For now, the question of what happens to Trump's account after he departs the White House is unanswered. Twitter's official line hasn't changed in recent weeks, despite the platform repeatedly having to flag his posts.

A Twitter spokesperson told Newsweek last week: "Twitter's approach to world leaders, candidates and public officials is based on the principle that people should be able to choose to see what their leaders are saying with clear context. This means that we may apply warnings and labels, and limit engagement to certain tweets."