A review of the recent Twitter purge by the New York Post found Republicans were disproportionately affected.
While the Senate's most prominent Democrats gained tens of thousands of followers after the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, 75% of Senate Republicans had seen their follower base shrink, including several losing tens of thousands, according to the report.
"We're living through a really dangerous period right now in which free speech is under concerted attack across the board," NYU professor Mark Crispin Miller told the Post. "Since Jan. 6th, it has primarily affected people on the right."
The left's big winners were, per the review:
- Vice President-elect Kamala Harris up 1.3 million.
- Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., up more than 70,000 in January.
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., up more than 80,000.
- Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., up more than 350,000.
Only two Senate Democrats, Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., have lost followers in the past 30 days, the Post reported.
The right's biggest losers, per the study:
- Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., down more than 112,000.
- Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., down 78,000.
- Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, down more than 50,000.
- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., down 45,000.
The losses might be attributed to the fact conservatives have protested Twitter amid conservative censorship allegations and the taking down of the conservative social media platform Parler.
"What we're witnessing is the transformation of the western Internet by corporations and the state into a forum much more like China's Internet," Miller told the Post. "In China, it's just a given when you're online you're under surveillance and can be punished for dissident expression."
The Post reported Twitter declined to comment.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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