Elon Musk bought Twitter to save free speech, he claimed. A new measure now shows that he is probably primarily concerned with his own.
Elon Musk loves showing off on Twitter. So much so that last year he even decided to buy the short message service. But apparently he still feels that he is not being heard enough. And with a new function, Twitter apparently finally declared its own mouthpiece.
Since Monday evening, tons of users have been complaining that they’re suddenly seeing Musk’s tweets all the time – even though they’re not following him at all. In the “For You” view, the Twitter app now suggests the boss’s tweets even if you’re not actually interested in him. It’s not really a coincidence. In a tweet, Musk even jokes about it himself: A picture shows a woman who appears to be forcing another to drink. The drinking is Twitter, the other Musk’s tweets, it says.
Forced Musk for everyone
Musk had already emphasized in the last few days that he wanted more visibility. He has a long day with the software engineers, he announced on Sunday. The two “significant problems” that had been worked on both affected him himself. On the one hand, an error had ensured that “95 percent of my tweets were not delivered at all”, on the other hand, accounts that were blocked by many people were deranked became. Because the absolute number was used instead of a percentage of followers, large accounts like his suffered particularly from it.
It has long been reported that Musk was obsessed with how many people saw his tweets. “That’s ridiculous,” he is said to have complained in a meeting, according to several sources, reports “Platformer”. “I have 100 million followers, but each tweet is only seen by ten thousand.” He suspected the algorithm would put him at a disadvantage.
“You’re fired!”
Despite intensive investigations, this could not be proven. However, Musk did not want to hear the explanation offered by his engineers instead: An employee cautiously tried to prove that public interest in Musk might have decreased. According to internal figures, its highest popularity on Twitter was reached in April last year. Then she gradually dropped. He even supported the thesis with a trend in Google searches for Musk. The high was also reached in April. If you take the value at that time as 100, the current popularity of the Twitter boss is only a value of 9.
Musk apparently didn’t want to hear that: “You’re fired! You’re fired!” He just shouted at the employee, according to information from “Platformer”.
Obsessed with numbers
The obsession of the Twitter boss with his own access numbers was recognized relatively early. Twitter “is bursting with life,” he praised the short message service shortly after the takeover. And referred to how many people responded to his tweets. Shortly thereafter, he made the calls visible to everyone. Because only a fraction of his readers clicked the Like or Reply button, he wanted to emphasize visibility, Musk explained. Since then, Twitter has also shown how often each tweet was viewed by other people.
But that was apparently not enough for the new boss. Similar to Tiktok, the service recently rolled out the aforementioned “For You” feature. Where you used to only see tweets from people you followed or interacted with, completely unrelated recommendations now appeared in the feed. About that of Elon Musk. Apparently, this is not well received by users. After a peak shortly after the takeover, the number of users has recently fallen by almost nine percent, according to a study by “Buzzfeed”.
The Twitter owner still doesn’t seem to be really satisfied. “Stay tuned, we’re still working on, um ‘algorithm’,” he tweeted this morning. A user replied with a suggestion of what that could look like: In addition to the tabs for the suggestions and the one for the classic chronological feed, there was an additional one right at the front. The unique name of the new main feed: “Elon Musk”.
Sources: Elon Musk, Platformer, Buzzfeed
