Twitter had been openly suppressing conservative voices. The extent to which they were suppressed could be seen days after Musk’s takeover. Multiple major Republican candidates suddenly secured thousands of additional followers, while the opposite was true for Democrats.
Florida’s Governor DeSantis saw 3,770 new followers on the first day of Musk’s takeover. Within four days, DeSantis’ followers rose by 148,000. Texas Senator Ted Cruz saw an increase of 1,676 on Musk’s first day, followed by another 41,000 a few days later. Georgia Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene added 1,995 new followers on day one, 41,520 on day two, and 24,287 more on day three. Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Donald Trump Jr., Kari Lake, and others all saw sudden rises.
On the other hand, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York shed thousands of followers, as did other squad members. Former President Obama and Vice President Harris also saw a sharp decline in followers, presumably bot accounts.
All of this happened before Twitter even revamped the algorithm. The silent majority was, in fact, silenced on Twitter.