Elon’s ExTwitter Engagement Stat Exaggeration: Outside Stats Paint A Bleaker Picture

Does anyone actually trust Elon to be honest about, well, anything? Last week he claimed that ExTwitter hit a new “all-time high” on engagement, with “417 billion user-seconds globally” and that in the US it was 93 billion “user-seconds.”

First off, what the fuck are “user-seconds”? This is not a typical measure in the internet world. It’s also a potentially misleading one. The grand sum total of “user seconds” can be pretty misleading. Does it count people just seeing tweets in the wild? What counts as a “user second”? If someone just leaves a tab open does that continue to count? Are they actively engaging on the site? There are so many questions as to what that stat even means.

But, more importantly, as Media Post points out, Elon had announced numbers back in March that suggested even higher engagement data than what he claimed was this new “record” high. Of course, there appears to be some gamesmanship with the numbers, as the March numbers Media Post is discussing are per month, and Elon seems to be talking about a single (very newsworthy, right after the assassination attempt) day on ExTwitter:

Musk posted that X saw a cumulative “417 billion user-seconds globally” in one day — equating to 27.8 minutes per users — at 250 million daily active users, which does not align with X’s user reportage in March, when the company said users were spending 30 minutes per day with the app on average.

The company also claimed 8 billion total minutes in March, but 417 billion seconds only equates to 6.95 billion minutes, which either negates the “record high engagement” now or invalidates the previous numbers.

On July 15, Musk also posted that in the U.S., user seconds reached 93 billion — “23% higher than the previous record of 76B.” This equates to 15.5 minutes per user, on average, based on X’s previous reportage of 100 million U.S. users — a figure that is lower than expected.

The lack of standard and standardized reporting allows playing with the numbers to misrepresent how popular the site is.

Meanwhile, that same article also highlights how outside observers see little to no evidence of higher engagement on the site, and plenty of evidence of decline:

… a new report by data intelligence platform Tracer shows “significant drops” in user engagement and “drastic drops” in advertising unlike competitors like YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest.

In June, X advertising saw drops month-over-month and year-over-year, the report shows, with click-through-rates (CTRs) declining 78% month-over-month, which the report suggests reflects a sharp downturn in user activity. In addition, cost-per-thousand (CPMs) decreased 17% from May to June, suggesting that advertisers are also leaving X.

[….]

Comparatively, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube have seen dramatic user engagement increases recently. Instagram’s CTRs surged by 89% over the past year, while YouTube and Pinterest saw increases of 77% and 385%, respectively. The success these platforms are seeing is likely a direct result of the introduction of new video-first launches, such as Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and a host of new features on Pinterest.

Is it any wonder that the site is struggling, with Elon telling advertisers to go fuck themselves and then threatening to sue those advocating pulling ads from the site?

But really, when it comes down to details, does anyone believe Elon’s random “best day ever!” tweets to be trustworthy?