One of his tweets was less successful than he thought. So Elon Musk asked his Twitter employees to change the algorithm so that his posts were amplified for a factor of x1000, reaching over 90% of his followers and reaching everywhere on the platform. It is not a joke or a conspiracy theory, confirmed the CEO of Twitter himself: he has modified the platform to give greater visibility to his profile.
Elon Musk modifies the Twitter algorithm to amplify his tweets
The Super Bowl is played on Sunday evening in the United States, the ‘big game’ that everyone watches – if only for Rihanna’s Half Time show. But Elon Musk has another concern. President Biden’s tweet, claiming his wife is an (later underdog) Eagles fan, reaches 29 million people. That of Musk – also a Philadelphia fan – stops at 9.1 million.
Elon doesn’t like this. Just a few days ago she had fired an engineer who told him his declining tweet numbers were due to a decline in popularity, as demonstrated by the fewer searches on Google and on other social networks. But that doesn’t go down well with him.
So at 2:36 AM on Monday morning, shortly after the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl, the cousin of the CEO, James Musk, writes in Twitter’s corporate Slack: “We are fixing an issue with engagement in the platform. Anyone who can do dashboards and write code needs to help us fix this please. This is an urgency. If you can help please like this post.
All awake to increase boss re-tweets
Engineers woke up and fired up their laptops, as The Verge reports, to find the problem was that the US President’s tweets were more followed than those of the CEO of Twitter.
During the night, Musk flew on his private jet to Twitter’s main office to ask for an explanation. By Monday evening, the effect of this flight and the engineers’ sleepless hours took their toll. The message boards and especially the For You section of Twitter were inundated with Musk’s tweets. Those who follow the tycoon had to scroll a lot before finding someone else’s post. And even those who don’t follow Elon Musk have seen Twitter full of his comments: something had changed in the algorithm.
At first, many users were incredulous: a CEO who changes the code of his platform just to get a few more re-tweets seems like a joke, not a business strategy. But the American press reports that Elon Musk himself has managed the team of 80 Twitter engineers overnight who changed the algorithm to show Musk’s tweets to everyone.
An artificial boost to Musk’s profile (and ego?).
After his colleague’s firing, the engineers knew they couldn’t tell Musk that the US President’s tweet supporting his wife had surpassed his most popular reason. So they tried other theories. Like the possibility that so many users blocked or muted Musk’s profile after the takeover that the algorithm is punishing it. Others thought about possible technical problems.
But to solve the problem in a few hours, an ad personam solution arrives. All of Musk’s tweets will no longer go through filters to gauge their general interest. Instead, they will receive a automatic boost of x1000, ensuring they are at the top of the feed of anyone using the platform. Also, no more filters blocking multiple posts from the same account in a row: twitter users will drown in Musk’s tweets.
Elon Musk and the Twitter algorithm: you can fix it, don’t go back
After the entire platform noticed the change in Twitter’s algorithmElon Musk acknowledged what he did his way, with a meme of the series “forced to drink milk”. And after many pointed out how outrageous it was that the CEO was using the platform to promote his tweets, he has written: “Please stay tuned as we make adjustments to…. ‘algorithm'”.
In other words, perhaps the factor of x1000 seems exaggerated even for Musk, who is exceeding i 40 million impressions with each tweet. So the effect will decrease, but the amplification will still take place.
Some of his tweets, like the latte one linked above, have exceeded 140 million views, more even than the number of followers just under 130 million. Others have failed to break through the 10 million mark this month. An average user or influencer would think that it depends on the quality of the tweet, from the moment you post, from the discussion on the platform. But why think when you can modify the Twitter algorithm to have an artificial success bought with billions?
One employee commented to The Verge: “He bought the company, stressed over and over that he believed it was being manipulated under previous management. Then it turns out that he manipulates the platform to engage all users so that they only hear his voice. I think it’s beyond the point of believing that he wants the best for everyone here.”