Twitter conspiracy theorists claim that the social media site’s algorithm has been giving certain accounts more attention than others, making their Tweets more noticeable and more likely to appear on user feeds even if the user does not follow them.
According to papers seen by Platformer, a small group of prominent people, including politicians and celebrities, have been granted “greater exposure” since Elon Musk’s takeover.
There are around 35 Twitter “VIPs” on the list, which of course includes Musk.
Other well-known people whose accounts have been enhanced include NBA star LeBron James, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (with whom Musk often has heated exchanges on the site), YouTuber MrBeast, former Vice President Joe Biden, and political analyst Ben Shapiro.
Platformer says that the identities on the list are meant to be more well-known than other accounts.This includes having the capacity to bypass a feature of Twitter’s algorithm that prevents too many postings from one account from being seen.
Regarding the claimed papers, Musk has not yet made any public comments.
The news comes just days after it was made public that Musk valued Twitter at $20, or $22 billion less than what he paid for it when he became the sole owner last fall. However, Musk said he hopes to eventually grow the company to $250 billion through what he predicts will be a “clear but difficult path.”
Beginning of this weekend, Twitter and Musk also filed a complaint after discovering that a portion of the platform’s source code—the back-end code that enables the platform to function as is—had been leaked and uploaded on Github before being removed by the hosting site.
The social media site will start removing the blue checkmarks from users who have already been verified over the weekend, compelling them to sign up for Elon Musk’s Twitter Blue membership service, which costs $7.99 per month, in order to continue using their accounts.
On April 1, the removal procedure of Twitter Legacy checkmark is scheduled to start.
