Reporters share Twitter statement that 'explains why prominent Republicans have been losing followers en masse'

If you follow Twitter, you’ll have noticed many accounts that have been losing followers in the last several days. Late last week Twitter issued this statement to explain things, at least in part:

To clear up confusion about fluctuations in follower counts:

In order to prevent spam, we regularly challenge accounts to confirm details like email and phone number. Until that info is confirmed, these accounts aren’t included in follower counts. https://t.co/8BYcBCmxxA

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) January 9, 2021

Reporters from Bloomberg and NBC News have added to Twitter’s explanation for lost followers by sharing part of their latest statement:

NEW: Twitter has suspended "more than 70,000 accounts" since Friday that were "engaged in sharing harmful QAnon-associated content at scale and were primarily dedicated to [its] propagation."

This explains prominent Republicans losing followers en masse.https://t.co/oUsZZrDpbS

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) January 12, 2021

Twitter announces it deleted *70,000* accounts that were primarily sharing QAnon content at scale.

If you've lost a lot of followers, it might just be you had a lot of Q-ers in your midst.

— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) January 12, 2021

It’s been noticed that many questionable accounts still, nevertheless, remain active:

But keeping accounts for actual dictators is absolutely fine https://t.co/XF8RHmA8kS

— Mike Graham ?? (@Iromg) January 12, 2021

Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei and CCP accounts that are still active agree wholeheartedly.

So when will Antifa be suspended? https://t.co/Vibl3Pcka7

— Taxpayer1234 (Parler: taxpayer4) (@Taxpayers1234) January 12, 2021

Also, accounts that have called into question the integrity of elections are still acceptable and don’t even require a “disputed claim” tag, provided they’re from prominent Democrats:

Our election was hijacked. There is no question. Congress has a duty to #ProtectOurDemocracy & #FollowTheFacts.

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) May 16, 2017