Since the world’s richest man Elon Musk took over Twitter (now X) last year, reports of user exodus started surfacing the internet. The growing list of celebrities and brands now reconsidering using the social media platform has been joined by environmental scientists as per a recent Nature study. 

To get familiar with the nature of researchers currently interacting with the site, Nature reached out to 170,000+ scientists who were, or still are, users; nearly 9,200 responded. The findings suggest a significant shift in behavior, as over half of the respondents have curtailed their time spent on the platform within the past six months. Moreover, a minority—just under 7%—stated they have completely abandoned its use. Approximately 46% of the surveyed researchers have sought refuge on alternative platforms, including Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, and even TikTok.

As per the responses, reasons for user migration varied from noticing an uptick in the amount of strange” political far-right accounts espousing science denialism, to Musk’s chaotic management. After Musk completed the $44 billion deal to acquire the platform, he made a series of unessential changes including decreased content moderation; ditched the ‘blue-tick’ verification;  the introduction of data access fees for research purposes, limiting visible tweet count per user; and abruptly rebranding the platform’s name to ‘X’, making the blue bird extinct.  

Furthermore, Nature pointed out that Twitter has historically played an integral role in the research community to publicize and promote scientific debate. 

Researchers and scientists on the platform have served as an important source of authoritative information even though it long struggled to combat misinformation. The platform founded in 2006 has also been a valuable source of data to study subjects ranging from public health to linguistics.
But it’s not the same as it was. The majority of users now feel their voices go unheard due to the platform’s priority to push content from ‘paid and verified’ accounts. Moreover, the company has made its API so expensive that most cannot afford and access it.