It was one other huge weekend for X, with the tried assassination of former President Donald Trump driving extra dialog within the app.

Although the specifics, as all the time, do require some scrutiny.

Immediately, X proprietor Elon Musk has claimed that the platform reached a brand new “document excessive” in utilization.

Breaking that down, Musk says that X noticed a cumulative “417 billion user-seconds globally” in sooner or later, which equates to 27.8 minutes per person, at 250 million every day actives.

Which is so much, but it surely’s not as a lot as X claimed again in March, when it stated that customers are spending half-hour per day within the app on common.

So it’s both not a document, or X made a mistake in its reporting earlier within the yr.

Which I believe is the case, as a result of 417 billion seconds additionally comes out to six.95 billion minutes, nicely beneath the 8b that X additionally claimed in March.

Musk’s declare of 93 billion person seconds within the U.S. alone additionally equates to fifteen.5 minutes per person, on common, assuming 100 million U.S. customers (which X has beforehand claimed). Which isn’t notably excessive per-person utilization, and on stability, trying on the numbers, actually, it’s arduous to measure what both of those knowledge factors really imply, as we don’t have sufficient qualifying data to measure how cumulative person seconds applies to succeed in and resonance amongst X customers.

The one assumption we will make is that X is reaching fewer folks, which is why it’s switched to reporting cumulative seconds as an alternative. But, on the similar time, X is a beneficial utility for real-time breaking information occasions, notably given Meta’s aversion to the identical for its Twitter-like Threads app.

So X is little doubt seeing good efficiency, and it must be touting its utilization throughout occasions like this. But, its personal knowledge is complicated and convoluted, and it seemingly contradicts itself so typically that it’s arduous to know what any of its utilization numbers really imply.

From a advertising perspective, advertisers wish to understand how many individuals they will attain, how lengthy individuals are engaged, and what parts they’re participating with. Based mostly on this, they will then make an knowledgeable selection about how they will attain folks within the app, however I’m unsure that X’s knowledge offers this perception.

As a substitute, it looks like a continued try to obscure utilization declines, whether or not they’re taking place or not, as a result of it might’t make up its thoughts about its personal efficiency figures.

If X desires to be clear, as Musk says, it ought to publish full utilization knowledge, together with customers, and permit broader scrutiny of its efficiency.