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

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by varsock@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev

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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/

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[–] Max_UL@lemmy.pro 7 points 1 year ago (5 children)

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 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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 1 year 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.

[–] ndotb@programming.dev 3 points 1 year 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.

[–] TheGod@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Internet usage data were never secrets.

[–] MostlyBirds@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] varsock@programming.dev 9 points 1 year 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