431

Twitter traffic appears to be declining since the beginning of the 2023 calendar year (programming.dev)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by varsock@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev

34 comments fedilink hide all child comments

https://radar.cloudflare.com/domains

Source of this is from Matthew Prince, Co-founder & CEO of Cloudflare posted at 11:34 Jul 9,2023. It was posted to his twitter (@eastdakota). Not linking to twitter bc don't want a deadlink next time twitter makes API changes. And not to drive traffic to twitter :D

Edit: July 11th update, arstechnica published a detailed explanation

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/07/twitter-is-tanking-amid-threads-surging-popularity-analysts-say/

top 31 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] victron@lemmy.world 99 points 2 years ago

Oh no.

Anyway.

[-] MsPenguinette 68 points 2 years ago

Feels like a “no shit, Sherlock” headline but good to see hard proof. Disappointed in it only being a small amount tho

[-] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 19 points 2 years ago

I think it's more of a "thank God" moment than anything. The way shits been going these past few years it's completely possible thier traffic could have gone up. Just because.

[-] varsock@programming.dev 17 points 2 years ago

to be fair, the original poster used the word "tanking" and he knows a thing or two about DNS. I thought "tanking" was too click-baity and toned it down :D

[-] abhibeckert@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Tanking is accurate - they were the 32nd highest traffic domain and now they're 42nd (fell even further since that screenshot was taken).

Ten places, when you're that close to the highest traffic domains on the internet, is massive. Twitter has gone from similar traffic to Bing to having less traffic than Spotify.

Worse though - more than half of their losses over six months happened in the last week or two.

[-] varsock@programming.dev 1 points 2 years ago

what surprised me here is how much traffic bing gets 😅 integrating with AI was a real pro move, it seems.

Any insight into how much the reduction in traffic is just restricting API usage and actual user interaction? Surely there is a correlation in more API usage (if not just scraping) would drive more engagement?

[-] RogueTyre@lemmy.fmhy.ml 3 points 2 years ago

The dip is small but the enormous debt Elon put on its back will definitely kill it soon enough.

[-] thicket@programming.dev 35 points 2 years ago

While I would love to see Twitter auguring straight into the ground, Twitter’s API changes would explain some portion of this traffic changes. I wonder if there are any other proxy measures for audience engagement as separate from basic traffic

[-] robolemmy@lemmy.world 15 points 2 years ago

Between the egregious API pricing and the recent login requirement, this traffic graph makes perfect sense.

I agree that we need some measure of actual engaged human beings before we start dancing on twitter’s grave.

[-] varsock@programming.dev 2 points 2 years ago

very good point

[-] tallwookie@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago

oh god, hopefully Musk can sue his way into making more people use it!! /s

[-] golamas1999@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago

I just deleted my Facebook and Twitter.

[-] Deely@programming.dev 1 points 2 years ago

Like just now? Why both?

[-] hunger@programming.dev 7 points 2 years ago

What is actually meassured there? "Line goes down" is not necessary a bad thing:-)

[-] laxe@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 years ago

It measures the most popular sites by dns lookup. Twitter fell from 32nd to 39th.

[-] Johanno@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

Well this probably doesn't measure any app user

[-] cabbage@programming.dev 8 points 2 years ago

not a definite measurement for a decline in users but I would argue it shows a trend of less users visiting the site

[-] laxe@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago

App users still make API calls to Twitter’s domain. Depending on the domain name, these app users might still be counted.

[-] Max_UL@lemmy.pro 6 points 2 years ago

Does Twitter use Cloudflare? I hate anything Elon and want him to fail, but it would be kinda crazy for the CEO of a company I use services with to broadcast an embarrassing indicator to the world that my business isn’t going well.

[-] varsock@programming.dev 13 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I dont know to what capacity twitter uses cloudflare but cloudflare is rather ubiquitous. Even if twitter didn't have services with cloudflare, when a user's device resolves the domain name "twitter.com" to an IP address, it might go through Cloudflare's DNS servers. And givien the ubiquity of Cloudflare DNS, this is likely frequently. By monitoring the DNS queries for Twitter.com, Cloudflare can estimate the traffic volume by analyzing the number and frequency of requests received.

I don't know why cloudflare's CEO would do that or where he keeps his huge steel balls, but today I learned I can mine Cloudflare's internet usage data. And I might have found a new hobby!

Cloudflare Radar has an API that gives access to Cloudflare’s data on global Internet traffic..

Radar’s API is free, allowing academics, data sleuths and other web enthusiasts to investigate Internet usage across the globe.

[-] KingKRool@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

I suspect DNS rankings from Cloudflare DNS lookups (1.1.1.1) makes more sense as the source of the data. However Twitter/Musk are refusing to pay rent and were even refusing to pay vendors like Google Cloud in an attempt to save cash and renegotiate prices. So I wouldn't be that shocked if Cloudflare terminated them for non-payment and publicly shamed them. Even then I think it's unlikely they'd do it like this as Cloudflare probably wouldn't want to concern their other customers.

[-] TheGod@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Internet usage data were never secrets.

[-] MostlyBirds@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Ok but you'd actually be paying what you owe for the services you receive, presumably.

[-] varsock@programming.dev 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

see comment above, but in short twitter need not hire cloudflare for services. Cloudflare plays an important role in the backbone of the internet. If twitter is resolved through cloudflare's DNS, cloudflare can estimate the volume of traffic to Twitter.com. This appears what had happened given the published graph is "DNS ranking". FYI, and for mine as well as I just discovered, we can generate that graph by our selves by using cloudflare's Radar API

[-] ndotb@programming.dev 1 points 2 years ago

They use Atlanta Metro, AWS and GCP as far as I know. I want to say they own the Oregon DC but can't remember.

[-] xoggy@programming.dev 2 points 2 years ago

Where on the radar dashboard can I see that exact graph?

[-] varsock@programming.dev 5 points 2 years ago

You'd have to make some API calls after you apply for a token. I am trying to replicate the graph for myself as we speak. Didn't know Cloudflare had this gold mine:

Cloudflare Radar has an API that gives access to Cloudflare’s data on global Internet traffic..

Radar’s API is free, allowing academics, data sleuths and other web enthusiasts to investigate Internet usage across the globe.

load more comments

this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023

431 points (100.0% liked)

Programming

17853 readers

199 users here now

Welcome to the main community in programming.dev! Feel free to post anything relating to programming here!

Cross posting is strongly encouraged in the instance. If you feel your post or another person's post makes sense in another community cross post into it.

Hope you enjoy the instance!

Rules

Follow the programming.dev instance rules
Keep content related to programming in some way
If you're posting long videos try to add in some form of tldr for those who don't want to watch videos

Wormhole

Follow the wormhole through a path of communities !webdev@programming.dev

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

snowe@programming.dev

Ategon@programming.dev

MaungaHikoi@lemmy.nz