Reputation Transfer in the Twitter Diaspora

TL;DR

This paper investigates user migration patterns from X/Twitter to emerging social platforms and examines how digital reputation transfers across these ecosystems, revealing correlations and migration tendencies.

Contribution

It provides empirical analysis of user migration and reputation transferability across multiple social media platforms, highlighting the correlation between reputations on Twitter and Threads.

Findings

Users with large followings are more likely to migrate.

Reputation on Twitter correlates strongly with Threads.

Reputation does not significantly transfer to Mastodon or Truth Social.

Abstract

Social media platforms have witnessed a dynamic landscape of user migration in recent years, fueled by changes in ownership, policy, and user preferences. This paper explores the phenomenon of user migration from established platforms like X/Twitter to emerging alternatives such as Threads, Mastodon, and Truth Social. Leveraging a large dataset from X/Twitter, we investigate the extent of user departure from X/Twitter and the destinations they migrate to. Additionally, we examine whether a user's reputation on one platform correlates with their reputation on another, shedding light on the transferability of digital reputation across social media ecosystems. Overall, we find that users with a large following on X/Twitter are more likely to migrate to another platform; and that their reputation on X/Twitter is highly correlated with reputations on Threads, but not Mastodon or Truth Social.