Analysis: tweets about CVEs, which peaked before Elon Musk took over, show a steep decline in recent months, suggesting the infosec Twitter community has shrunk
https://www.cyentia.com/... Eduardo Cuducos / @cuducos.me : So long Infosec Twitter https://www.cyentia.com/... Mastodon: Dr. Juande Santander-Vela / @juandesant@astrodon.social : @Techmeme they might want to try a similar analysis now on the https://infosec.exchange instance... for free 😉 @simplenomad@rigor-mortis.nmrc.org : This has been making the rounds, interesting. I don't know how accurate an indicator of CVE is to show the actual end of #infosec #twitter, but considering how many Infosec people we have here now, I'd say it is definitely a trend that is at least signalling its inevitable demise. — https://www.cyentia.com/... @masukomi@connectified.com : The Death of #Infosec Twitter (in graphs) — https://www.cyentia.com/... I hope those infosec discussions have moved to Mastodon. The fact that they continue in some supportive environment is critical to everyone's online safety. Joe Uchill / @JoeUchill@mastodon.social : In short, this is where I'm posting it. — https://www.cyentia.com/... @evacide@hachyderm.io : We all knew infosec Twitter was dead, but here's a graph. — https://www.cyentia.com/... Kevin Beaumont / @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social : Pretty interesting - some stats on the decline of InfoSec Twitter HT @spacerog https://www.cyentia.com/... Eric Capuano / @eric_capuano@infosec.exchange : Predictable yet still fascinating metrics around the decline of Twitter usage by #infosec professionals.. … https://www.cyentia.com/... [image] @bkeegan@hci.social : The death of #Infosec Twitter: — “Over the last 3 weeks of our data (June 21 to July 12, 2023), we saw a weekday daily tweet count drop from the 1,272 pre-Elon average to just 333 tweets a day, which is about a 74% drop.” — https://www.cyentia.com/... [image] Twitter: Frederic Jacobs / @fredericjacobs : InfoSec Twitter is dead! Long-live https://infosec.exchange/ Mastodon! https://www.cyentia.com/... @oxbloodruffin : “So where does the death of infosec twitter happen? My best estimate is around the end of April or early May. Take a look (I shifted the date range here to focus mainly on the post-Elon era)” https://www.cyentia.com/... #Infosec #Twitter Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green : Following up on the recent article documenting the death of infosec Twitter, here is a great spreadsheet listing Mastodon addresses of infosec folks. I wish I knew how to bulk follow. https://docs.google.com/... @soatokdhole : https://www.cyentia.com/... The party's over Lauren McKenzie / @themckenziest : InfoSec Twitter is officially dead - this is bonkers bad. https://www.cyentia.com/... [image] @jayjacobs : Have you wondered how Elon's takeover of Twitter will or has affected cyber security discussions? I've been tracking CVE (vulnerability) discussions on twitter for two years now and the recent trend makes me question the future of “infosec twitter”. #CVE https://www.cyentia.com/... Jerry Gamblin / @jgamblin : Infosec Twitter used to be the go-to for vulnerability intelligence; today, @jayjacobs declares it is officially dead. https://www.cyentia.com/... @into_thefuture : Will we have the death of #OSINT Twitter too? https://www.cyentia.com/... @franksec42 : Good analysis on the latest change on tweeter feed data and the potential decline of query data from @jayjacobs declares infosec twitter deceased for query intelligence but there is still value in data here. Just harder to find. #cve #cyber https://www.cyentia.com/... Threads: Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : Elon Musk's mismanagement of Twitter has caused not just individuals but entire communities to leave the service. Tweets from information security (infosec) professionals have dropped 74% since Elon... Forums: Hacker News : The Death of Infosec Twitter r/netsec : The Death of Infosec Twitter r/cybersecurity : The Death of Infosec Twitter
Context & Ripple Effects
CVE-related conversation had become a useful visible signal of where security practitioners gathered publicly. But Twitter's post-takeover changes also constrained the surrounding social-web ecosystem, including the loss of a Mastodon follower-migration tool and web access that now requires sign-in.
The reported decline therefore matters less as a definitive census of security professionals than as evidence that a once-central professional discussion channel is fragmenting. The related coverage had already identified network effects and platform experience as key to whether communities remain on Twitter.
First-order effects
- Twitter becomes a less reliable public venue for discovering and following CVE discussion, as the analysis finds roughly a 74% drop in related tweets from the pre-takeover peak to June–July 2023.
- Infosec practitioners appear to be shifting some conversation toward Mastodon, including specialist instances, reducing the concentration of security exchange on one service.
Second-order effects
- Security teams, researchers, and OSINT users may need to monitor more than one network to capture the same early discussion signals; Twitter's login-gated web experience further raises friction for casual observation.
- Competing social platforms can attract specialist communities through tighter professional norms and existing member networks, rather than merely by competing for broad consumer engagement.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern persists, public vulnerability discourse will be distributed across interoperable or niche communities, making platform-specific activity metrics a weaker proxy for the health of the infosec community.
- Cyber-defense information sharing may become more resilient to any one platform's policies, but less centralized and harder to search or archive from a single public feed.
The trend: This is one data point in the fragmentation of professional online communities as platform policy changes weaken the network effects that once concentrated expert discourse on Twitter.