Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, or X as it's now called, has brought an abrupt shift in the dynamics of the platform.
For years, X functioned as an echo chamber where progressive academics freely exchanged ideas, often without much opposition.
With censorship dialed back and banned accounts reinstated, Musk's version of free speech drove many academics away, leading to a marked decrease in engagement among their ranks.
This article addresses a narrower empirical question: What did Elon Musk's takeover of the platform mean for this academic ecosystem? Using a snowball sample of more than 15,700 academic accounts from the fields of economics, political science, sociology, and psychology, we show that academics in these fields reduced their "Engagement" with the platform, measured by either the number of active accounts or the number of tweets written.
Academics' exodus from X after Musk's acquisition wasn't just a response to a change in management-it was a reaction to the loss of their curated, censorship-fueled dominance of online discourse.
Musk's X dismantled what many academics had relied on: a largely one-sided conversation.
The academic retreat from X isn't just about losing control.
As the Vibes Are Off study indicates, many prominent academics saw remaining on Musk's X as tacitly endorsing his version of free speech, including the reinstatement of figures like Donald Trump.
These are fields where intellectual diversity has been systematically excluded for decades, so it's no wonder that scholars would find Musk's X environment hostile.
In sum, Musk's X takeover and the subsequent academic retreat are case studies in how progressive institutions respond to the loss of control.
Musk has forced a confrontation with the reality that if you open the gates to a wider variety of voices, some people will pack up and leave.
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