Twitter Engineers Created System to Increase Elon Musk’s Tweets

Our worst suspicions over why Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s tweets flooded consumer feeds on Monday have been confirmed. Twitter engineers deliberately created a particular system to extend their boss’ view counts and the reason being simply as petty as you’ll be able to think about.

Hours after the Tremendous Bowl ended, Musk’s cousin James despatched a message marked “excessive urgency” to Twitter engineers in the midst of the evening, the Platformer publication reported. James requested engineers for assist fixing a giant drawback, which had apparently made CEO Musk so mad that he had hopped on his personal jet and was heading to San Francisco that evening. The issue was not, as an inexpensive particular person may count on, the Twitter outage that occurred throughout Rihanna’s halftime present on the platform’s greatest evening of the 12 months.

In actual fact, the problem was way more infantile. Musk was pissed that President Joe Biden’s tweet wishing the Philadelphia Eagles good luck had gotten extra engagement (29 million impressions) than his personal tweet blessing the Eagles (9.1 million impressions), in accordance with Platformer. In an obvious tantrum, Musk deleted his tweet in regards to the Eagles after the workforce misplaced.

As soon as Musk obtained to San Francisco, he summoned Twitter’s engineering workforce and informed them that in the event that they didn’t repair the engagement drawback (*cough* enhance the views on his tweets *cough*), he would fireplace them. Platformer discovered that about 80 Twitter staff have been assigned to the duty.

The workforce labored in a single day to attempt to discover out why their boss’ tweets weren’t as in style as they as soon as have been. One cause might be that Musk had gotten muted or blocked by many Twitter customers sick of his fixed antics, they theorized. Nonetheless, it additionally didn’t make sense that Twitter’s system wasn’t selling Musk’s tweets to his followers and non-followers as a lot because it ought to, which pointed to a attainable technical problem.

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In the end, Twitter’s engineers created a special system to ensure more than 90% of Musk’s followers saw his tweets. The system allows Musk’s tweets to bypass Twitter’s content filters, which aim to show users the best tweets, as explained by Platformer. It also artificially boosts Musk’s tweets to guarantee they rank higher than anyone else’s in Twitter’s ‘For You’ feed. As a result of the change, many users were bombarded with Musk’s tweets in their feeds on Monday.

Musk seemed to confirm the new Twitter experience was filled with him, him, and mostly him, shortly after midnight on Tuesday. He tweeted out a well-known meme of a lady forcing one other to drink milk. Within the meme, the woman holding the milk is labeled “Elon’s tweets” and the one being pressured to drink the milk is labeled “Twitter.” Hours later, Musk knowledgeable the those that Twitter was making some “changes.”

“Please keep tuned whereas we make changes to the uh .… ‘algorithm,’” he mentioned.

Musk has been obsessive about the quantity of engagement he will get on Twitter for weeks. On Feb. 7, he fired one in all Twitter’s two remaining principal engineers who informed him his engagement numbers may be dropping as a result of individuals are merely not that excited about him anymore. Earlier this month, the Twitter CEO determined to make his account personal after his right-wing mates informed him that had enhance their views.

One Twitter worker who spoke to Platformer about Twitter’s new Musk-filled feed identified that his boss was being a hypocrite. After making such a giant fuss about what was damaged and manipulated by earlier Twitter administration earlier than his reign, Musk was now manipulating Twitter to make sure everybody noticed what he needed to say.

“I feel we’re previous the purpose of believing that he really needs what’s finest for everybody right here,” the worker informed the outlet.

To these on the skin, that has been obvious for a very long time now. Elon needs what’s finest for Elon—no matter the price.