Tech billionaire Elon Musk has once again taken to Twitter to criticize the platform itself. In a tweet posted earlier today, Musk gave advice on ‘fixing’ users’ Twitter feed by asking them to change their feed in reverse chronological order by selecting the “Recent Tweets” option on their home screen. Musk also said that users are “being manipulated by the algorithm” in ways they don’t recognize.
Very important to fix your Twitter feed:
1. Tap the Home button.
2. Tap the stars at the top right of the screen.
3. Select “Recent Tweets”.You are being manipulated by the algorithm in ways you don’t understand.
Easy to switch back and forth to see the difference.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 14, 2022
Jack Dorsey, the founder of the platform, responded to this tweet by defending the algorithm, saying that it was only designed to save people time when they are away from the app for a while. Hours later, Musk clarified his initial tweet, saying he wasn’t suggesting any malice in the algorithm.
it’s simply designed to save you time when you’re away from the app for a while.
pull to refresh also reverts to reverse chron.
— jack⚡️ (@jack) May 14, 2022
I’m not suggesting malice in the algorithm, but rather that it’s trying to guess what you might want to read and, in doing so, inadvertently manipulate/reinforce your views without realizing it’s happening.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 15, 2022
This comes just days after Musk announced that his deal to take over Twitter was “temporarily on hold” as he waited for more details about the percentage of spam or fake accounts on the platform.
Twitter settlement temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts truly represent less than 5% of usershttps://t.co/Y2t0QMuuyn
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022
“Any reasonable random sampling process is good. If multiple people independently get similar results for % of fake/spam/duplicate accounts, that will be obvious. I chose 100 as the sample size number because that’s what Twitter uses to calculate <5% fake/spam/duplicate,” he added in response to the tweet announcing the purchase's status.
According to Musk, he later received a call from Twitter’s lawyers who told him that he had violated an NDA by disclosing the fact that the Twitter bot’s control sample size is 100.
