New data by Bot Sentinel, a firm that tracks inauthentic behaviour on Twitter, the social media network has already seen 877,000 deactivations between 27 October and 1 November since the "Chief Twit" took over. In the same timeframe, a further 497,000 accounts were suspended.  Twitter’s overall user base, which is currently at 237 million which is still not bad, although it is unclear how many of those are bots or inactive accounts.

A deactivation is when a user intentionally shuts down their account. A suspension is when Twitter removes accounts for inactivity, inauthenticity, or violation of site rules.

A separate analysis by research group Network Contagion Research Institute thought that "bad actors"  were trying to test Twitter's limits after it has been acquired by Musk. For example, the use of the word "nigger" on the platform increased by almost 500 per cent in 12 hours after Musk announced he had taken over Twitter.

 Bot Sentinel’s founder Christopher Bouzy predicts that the growing hostile environment on Twitter will eventually promote user attrition.

"If users continue to deactivate their accounts en masse, it will become a significant problem for the platform. If left-leaning and marginalised people leave the platform, Twitter will not differ from Parler or Truth Social."