Why stuck at 8.4 million? Tharoor stumped as his follower count on X stagnates for 4 yrs

For once senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor seems stumped and at a loss of words.

This is because of a long-standing issue he has been facing with his X account. On Sunday (November 17), Tharoor is baffled on why his follower count remains stagnant for the past four years and felt there is clearly something wrong that the people in charge of the microblogging website in India do not care about.

Most-followed politician

Tharoor, who is among the most-followed politicians in India, also said he had earlier written to X owner Elon Musk flagging the issue and in turn received a reply from a lawyer "flatly denying there was a problem".

Tharoor's remarks came in response to a post by an X user who said, "Who can tell us, @elonmusk, why, despite being tremendously liked by people across various lines, Dr. @ShashiTharoor's @X followers remain stuck at 8.4M?"

Reacting to the post, Tharoor said, "Good question. This has been the case for four years! A source at the old Twitter India told me there was a problem he couldn't understand: he had reviewed my daily statistics over six months, and found a strange pattern my followers went up by over 1,000 a day, about 60-70 "unfollowed" me each day, but my overall followers total wouldn't budge above 8.495 million."

Also read: Why Trump's win is good news for India, Tharoor explains

Shadow banned?

"He thought it was an algorithm glitch. Since my account is never 'suggested' for anyone to follow, and many of my followers complain about not receiving most of my posts on their timeline, I wondered if I had been 'shadow-banned'. (My source has since left @X)," he said.

"After three years plus of noticing this and no change under @X, I wrote to @elonmusk to inquire about this and received a lawyer's letter in return -- flatly denying there was a problem! So much for corporate responsiveness...".

"The only practical consequence of my inquiry is that my followers count now drops unsteadily each day from the peak of 8.495m to 8.429m today," the Thiruvananthapuram MP said.

There is clearly something wrong that the people in charge of X India don't care about, Tharoor said.

Also read: Tharoor meets EY employee's parents, blasts 'toxic work culture' at 'understaffed' firms

Going public

"But more and more people have been noticing and asking me, so I have finally decided to go public about it," he said.

Given all the more important issues in our public life, it seems too petty to mention, he said.

"But whether it is deliberate or accidental, I hope those asking understand that there is a problem. Perhaps laying it out here might get the attention of someone responsible at @XCorpIndia but I am not holding my breath!" Tharoor said.