Twitter loses 3 million monthly UK visitors after Musk takeover

Tesla boss took control of the social media company just over a year ago. Photo: Leon Neal/Poole via REUTERS

Twitter has lost almost three million UK visitors to its website following Elon Musk's troubled takeover, figures show.

The social media company now known as X, in May of this year attracted a total adult monthly audience of 24 million people. according to media regulator Ofcom, compared with 26.8 million in the same period last year.

Separate data from Ipsos iris shows Twitter's popularity among UK users has been declining in recent years, with reach falling from 61% adults in 2021 to 50% this year.

But the trend accelerated after the controversial $44 price. billion (£35 billion) by Mr Musk just over a year ago.

The Tesla founder, a self-described «free speech absolutist», has come under fire for his abrupt policy changes and is trying to turn around. return moderation to the social network.

Users complained about a sharp deterioration in the quality of the social network site after Musk fired more than 80% of the company's employees.

The new owner has also been criticized for his personal views, including an incident earlier this summer. in a month when he appeared to endorse an anti-Semitic post.

His actions drew criticism from the White House and contributed to an advertising boycott that led governments and big-name brands including Apple and Disney to pull ads from website.

Although the number of people accessing Twitter has fallen, Ofcom data showed the average time spent on the site each day has risen from six minutes to 10 minutes over the past year.

Still, Twitter is in turmoil . prompted many social media users to switch to competing services.

Threads, launched by Instagram in June, became the fastest downloaded app in history, with more than 100 million users worldwide signing up in just five days.

The data shows that by early September, less than three months after launch, almost a quarter of UK adults were using Threads.

Ofcom's annual Online Nation report also revealed the decline in popularity of Facebook and its sister app Messenger.

Over the past year, the number of monthly visitors fell by 1.4 million to 43.4 million, and the average time spent per day. fell by more than a quarter from 32 to 23 minutes.

This allowed Google-owned YouTube to overtake Facebook to become the most visited website in the UK, with 43.5 million monthly visitors and reaching 91 per cent of the population.

However, the data showed a sharp increase in disparities in social media use among different demographic groups.

Although people aged 45 and older spend an average of about half an hour a day on Facebook, among people in For those aged 18 to 24, this time has dropped to just 12 minutes.< /p>

In contrast, 3.8 million people aged 18 to 24 in the UK spend an average of 55 minutes on TikTok every day, while as roughly the same number of people spend 58 minutes a day on Snapchat.