Elon Musk said Twitter users were being “manipulated” by the site’s newsfeed algorithm, and advised users of the platform to turn the algorithm off.
The billionaire business man informed users that there are two versions of their feed. One is ‘latest tweets, and the other is ‘home.’ If a user has selected ‘home’ they see what Twitter’s algorithm wants them to see, however, if the user selects ‘latest’ they will see tweets from the account they follow in the order in which they are posted.
Musk advised users to switch to “Latest Tweet” immediately.
In a tweet sent out on Saturday night, Musk said,
“Very Important to fix your Twitter feed. You are being manipulated by the algorithm in ways you don’t realize,” Musk then listed off the steps users needed to take to ‘Fix your twitter feed saying,
- Tap home button
- Tap stars on upper right of screen
- Select ‘Latest tweets’
He finished off his post by saying it is ‘Easy to switch back & forth.’
Jack Dorsey quickly responded by disagreeing with Musk, saying the algorithm was put in place to update followers on trending news,
“It was designed simply to save you time when you are away from app for a while. pull to refresh goes back to reverse chron [chronological] as well.”
it was designed simply to save you time when you are away from app for a while.
pull to refresh goes back to reverse chron as well.
— jack⚡️ (@jack) May 14, 2022
Musk recently came to an agreement with Twitter to purchase the platform for $44 billion saying he intends on taking the company private after the purchase is complete. He will also serve as temporary CEO and plans to make at least 1,000 terminations.
Last week the deal was put on hold after a report stated that bot accounts represented less than 5% of users on Twitter, something Musk wants verified before the purchase is pushed through.
Always love your reporting Christina. Short, concise, accurate and to the point. Great job!