The biggest conservative news outlets are seeing a precipitous decline in traffic to their websites, and it's showing no sign of abating despite 2024 being a high-profile election season.On Wednesday, Daily Beast media reporter Justin Baragona tweeted traffic data compiled by media analyst Howard Po...
I mean, yah, there’s no libs to trigger on right wing sites. And what’s the point of spouting right wing rhetoric if you’re not making someone visibly angry about it?
Also, twitter and Facebook let them all back in, so why go to the shitty knock offs?
You may be joking, but I think that is a big part of what they look for, consciously or not. Progressives can be pretty happy discussing news and ideas with other progressives. Conservatives don't want to talk about things too much unless there's an argument to be had.
There's a certain level of amusement in trying to picture what those college end-of-party conversations that turn into breakfast at Denny's look like for conservatives. I enjoy a good, heated argument, but you don't bond over those except under very specific circumstances one doesn't run into at that time.
I thought this would be about Truth Social, but it's mostly about stuff like Breitbart. But then at the end:
Baragona observed that Trump's Truth Social platform also saw a significant decline in unique users. In May of 2024, Truth Social had just 2.7 million unique users, which is a 14% drop compared to May of 2023. This marked the platform's second-worst performing month since its launch.
So that's dropping, too. I wonder where all the users are going?
That's a very good question as it sure doesn't feel like misinformation has declined much in this timespan. My guess would be that the traffic is finding its way to smaller websites, like those used in astroturfing campaigns, though the article speculates that Facebook's algorithm changes may have lessened the flow of traffic to rightwing sites, and I'd guess that'd include these one-offs. Maybe X is picking up the slack there? They've certainly gotten fully unhinged and pandering to this crowd.
Could YouTube be another possibility? I think the algorithm is going strong there in favor of extremist content. My disabled dad, for example, spends his days jumping between watching shows like Cops, and watching YouTube videos of sovereign-citizen types harrassing cops. That's mixed in with all the other garbage his algorithm throws at him. Over the years he's gone from economically centre-left to fully buying into the Trump bandwagon (and we're not even American).
Whatever the answer, I think people are still getting this info from somewhere and apparently in droves.
It's definitely X. They left X because they were prevented from engaging in hate speech and held responsible for their actions. Musk created a right-wing hate safe space, and the audience for these users is much larger on X. There's also a handy way to identify your right-wing brethren with a blue check while they harass perceived liberals.
Rage isn't sustainable. Enthusiasm is down across the board, and the question will be whether enthusiasm among left-leaning voters has wanted waned to the same degree as among Trump's base.
This is not a case of great editing ... solid reporting, good numbers, takes a turn in the last graf and then summarily falls off a cliff. You can't claim a trend, show one data point and then run the tagline.