Other right-wing politicians across the world suffered similar falls.
Twitter’s crackdown on supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory was immediately followed by a large fall in Nigel Farage’s follower count, Left Foot Forward can reveal.
Throughout 2020, analysis of Social Blade shows Farage’s followers increased every single week. This continued in the first week of 2020 when they increased by 10,000.
But, after Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol and Twitter suspended 70,000 QAnon accounts, Farage’s follower count dropped by 49,000 in one week.
Farage has supported Donald Trump, praising him on US media and speaking at his rallies. Many of Farage’ followers are likely to support both Trump and QAnon.
QAnon is an unfounded conspiracy theory which claims Donald Trump is fighting against a Satan-worshipping pedophile elite.
Nigel Farage has never expressed support for QAnon and there is no suggestion that he supports it privately. He condemned the storming of the Capitol which could also have caused him to lose followers.
Right-wing politicans around the world experienced a similar drop in followers after Twitter’s crackdown. In Australia, the Guardian reported that right-winger Pauline Hanson lost 2,500 followers and other members of her party lost between 1,000 and 2,000.
Australia’s right-wing leader Scott Morrison lost followers on the Saturday and Sunday, as did Boris Johnson who lost 6,000 on the Saturday after the storming and 2,000 on the Sunday. Priti Patel, Liam Fox and James Cleverly all lost a few hundred supporters in the relevant week.
The centre-left politicians Left Foot Forward analysed did not have a fall in followers. Keir Starmer, Jacinda Ardern, Anthony Albanese and Joe Biden all increased their followers that week.
Joe Lo is a co-editor of Left Foot Forward
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