Banning Trump Didn’t Change How Much People Use Twitter, New Data Shows
Trump’s presence on Twitter had no impact on how much people used it, contrary to the popular narrative.
During the time Donald Trump was president, there was a common misconception among some people that Twitter’s fate was dependent on his. In his view, if he wasn’t present, Twitter would lose truckloads of users and engagement, and as a result would be at the mercy of him. In spite of Trump’s ban on Twitter, the data shows he did not have any discernible impact on how much Twitter was used by people after he was banned.
According to a new study conducted by the mobile research company Apptopia, the daily use of Twitter has remained remarkably consistent since it banned Trump last month. The number of people using Twitter’s app during the month of January barely registered a blip in the number of times people used it. Looking at the trend line, it is impossible to pinpoint the day of the ban itself when looking at the data itself.
It is very difficult for one person to make a significant impact on such large social network apps, Adam Blacker, Apptopia’s vice president of insights and global alliances, told me. “Cultural events are much better seen in the data than individual situations from one person.”
In the new data, which was published in this article for the first time, Twitter can finally put an end to the notion that it kept Trump on the service in order to boost engagement and make money from advertising. As a matter of principle, Twitter kept Trump’s account live even though he had several runs-ins with its rules.