X users begin to lose followers as Musk cracks down on bots, trolls

X users on Friday started losing followers as Elon Musk-run social media platform kicked off the exercise to remove bots. The action came as spam and porn bots swarmed the platform in the past few months, leaving users flummoxed. “I lost 48 followers after Elon’s bot and troll purge – that was less than 0.002 per cent,” posted an X user. “I lost like 6 followers today. Are bot accounts actually being purged?” another wrote. Musk had announced that a system purge of bots and trolls was underway. “Please reply to me or @XEng if legitimate accounts are suspended,” said the billionaire. “X Corp will be tracing the people responsible and bringing the full force of the law to bear upon them,” he added. A user commented: “To the hundreds of bots leaving me today, I will not miss you.” X safety account also posted that they have kicked off a “significant, proactive initiative to eliminate accounts that violate our Rules against platform manipulation and spam”. “As a result, you may observe changes in follower counts”. X has not shared about how many bots are currently there on the platform. In 2022, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO had said that “we will defeat the spam bots or die trying”.