Elon Musk has managed to decimate Twitter’s UK users since taking over the platform and rebranding it as X, Financial Times analysis shows.
Millions of users have abandoned the platform after the Tesla man appeared at the social media platform’s HQ carrying a kitchen sink in 2022.
Once a thriving space for political discourse, news updates, and cultural engagement, Twitter’s UK usage has dropped by a significant margin, as users seek alternative platforms.
…
In the UK, where Twitter had been a crucial forum for political debates, this shift has led to a considerable drop in engagement.
Graphical data shared online clearly illustrates the stark drop in UK user numbers, confirming that Musk’s promises to revive Twitter have instead accelerated its decline.
With no signs of reversing the trend, the platform’s future in the UK looks increasingly uncertain.
From login/paywalled Financial Times article that this is citing:
If your platform loses over a million users in a year then I would personally call that decimating. The numbers are still falling too so lets check back in another year
Wow, 1/3… that’s not “decimated”. There are still enough people on there that it frequently gets referenced. This post and article are proof of it. Shit article.
When it it’s down to 5-15% of what it previously was, then we can speak of “decimated”.
Historical definition of decimated: reduce by 10%. Not to 10%.
Modern definition: reduce by significant amount.
Decimation is a punishment when every tenth person was killed. Not every tenth person surviving.
Decimated literally means “reduced by one tenth”. So I guess you’re right. A one third reduction is not “decimated”. It’s three times worse than that.
Yeah, I didn’t consider the Latin roots. However, I purport that very few people actually mean “reduced by one tenth” when they say “decimated”. As you pointed out, even the author doesn’t mean that.
Confidently incorrect.