Leaked documents reveal Twitter is secretly boosting MrBeast & more on platform
Instagram: MrBeast / TwitterRecently leaked documents have revealed that the social media platform Twitter has a curated list of 35 users who receive boosted engagement.
Twitter has gone through numerous changes since business magnate Elon Musk became CEO of the social media platform in October of 2022, many of which have divided its user base.
Notably, some netizens have noticed that Elon Musk’s tweets have received higher visibility across the platform, with users who don’t follow Musk claiming his tweets frequently showed up on their timelines.
Thanks to recently leaked documents, it seems Twitter may actually maintain a curated list of users who receive special treatment in the form of boosted engagement, including MrBeast, pro baller LeBron James, and President Joe Biden.
Leaked Twitter documents reveal users with boosted engagement
According to documents obtained by tech publication Platformer, Twitter has kept a list of about 35 users, ranging from high-profile athletes to influencers, whose accounts are monitored and given “increased visibility.”
Managing Editor of Platform, Zoë Schiffer, said, “For months, Twitter has maintained a list of VIP users, including LeBron James, Glenn Greenwald, Ben Shapiro, AOC, and Marc Andreessen, that it monitors and gives increased visibility to on the platform.”
Apparently, the list was originally created so that Twitter could keep track of how modifications to the algorithm would affect engagement and visibility for users with large followings.
If Twitter engineers identify segments of the ranking system where tweets from these accounts are “dropping,” they can tweak the code to ensure the tweets are always shown. 2/
— Zoë Schiffer (@ZoeSchiffer) March 28, 2023
It seems the purpose of this list changed in December 2022, though, as Musk began to notice engagement on his tweets were steadily dropping.
As such, Twitter’s engineers purportedly created ways to tweak the algorithm so that, in the case of noteworthy Twitter users receiving less engagement, they could make sure “that tweets from those accounts were always shown.”
On top of these claims, Platformer said, “Twitter engineers say the chief executive repeatedly flags the complaints of high profile users over those of average ones, effectively forcing them to act as a highly-paid customer support team for Musk and his most favored users.”
With Musk confirming that, starting on April 15, the For You Page will only show verified accounts, it seems Twitter users will see more and more of these high-profile users on their timeline in the future — whether they follow them or not.