Similarweb: daily X users in the UK fell from 8M in May 2023 to 5.6M now, with 33%+ of the fall coming after the summer riots; US DAUs fell by ~20% in that time

The great migration from Elon Musk's X has seen users, especially progressives, retreat into one particular silo

Financial Times 2024-09-23 Jemima Kelly

Context & Ripple Effects

The UK and US figures extend a decline already visible in Similarweb’s 2023 traffic data, which showed weaker global and US web traffic, and in Sensor Tower’s February reading of lower US mobile-app usage.

The new data matters because it indicates that X’s audience erosion is not confined to one access channel or geography. The concentration of a substantial share of the UK decline after the summer riots also identifies a period in which retention weakened more sharply.

First-order effects

X has a smaller active audience in two important English-language markets, reducing the immediate reach available to users who remain on the service.
The post-riots portion of the UK decline puts pressure on X to retain users during politically and socially charged moments, when platform experience can directly affect repeat use.

Second-order effects

Rival social platforms can target users seeking an alternative audience or discussion environment, while X must compete harder to prevent further switching.
A smaller and more fragmented active base makes it harder for organizations that rely on broad public conversation to treat one platform as a sufficient distribution channel.

Third-order effects

If declines persist across web and mobile measures, social-media competition is likely to shift further from winner-take-all public feeds toward smaller, more segmented communities.
The reported migration of progressive users into a single silo suggests that audience loss can also reshape the political and cultural mix of the remaining network, reinforcing fragmentation rather than simply reallocating scale.

The trend: This is one data point in the fragmentation of formerly central social networks into ideologically and socially distinct audience hubs.

Discussion

@ordinarytings Josh Otten on x
Not surprising. Huge part of the UK Twitter population is here only for football news and memes. Since Elon took over, that side of Twitter has been carpet-bombed into a desert of OF spam and hardcore racism.
@begriffis Ben Griffis on x
Still no great football (analysis) Twitter replacement 😭
@daraobriain Dara Ó Briain on x
Jesus, what's wrong with people? How can they not want to watch endless chains of videos of motorbike accidents, and people in America being punched?
@jburnmurdoch John Burn-Murdoch on x
Notably, the exodus from X in the UK has been heavily concentrated among progressives, while socially conservative Brits have stuck around. [image]
@jburnmurdoch John Burn-Murdoch on x
Striking how Musk's post saying civil war was inevitable in the UK due to immigration prompted a sudden and large migration from X to BlueSky in Britain. User numbers for BlueSky remain far smaller than for X, but I'd say most of the UK commentariat has now moved across. [image]
@jburnmurdoch John Burn-Murdoch on x
X/Twitter user numbers now down by almost a third over the last year in the UK, and by almost a fifth in the US. [image]
r/TrueReddit r on reddit
With Bluesky, the social media echo chamber is back in vogue. The great migration from Elon Musk's X has seen users, especially progressives, retreat into one particular silo

Chronicles