Elon Musk has been installing and experimenting with many new features and tools for Twitter ever since he took over the company. The microblogging service recently brought out some upgrades, including introducing Twitter Blue and adding additional badge colors to profiles. Additionally, Twitter will soon add new functions. Musk, the CEO of the social network, recently made his Twitter account private to test the algorithm of the microblogging service.
Musk temporarily locked his profile to see how to account privacy affected the reach of both private and public tweets. To avoid alarming his 127.7 million followers on the microblogging site, Musk disclosed his experiment before becoming private on Twitter.
“Made my account private until tomorrow morning to test whether you see my private tweets more than my public ones,” Musk wrote before turning his Twitter profile private. The Tesla CEO unlocked his profile precisely 24 hours later and shared his initial interpretation of the experiment with the public.
The 51-year-old claimed that the evaluation enabled him to pinpoint several systemic problems with Twitter, which the social media platform intends to fix by next week.
“This helped identify some issues with the system. Should be addressed within the next week, “Musk disclosed. Musk, who paid $44 billion to acquire micr-blogging website in October, previously reacted to a Tweet thread explaining how making an account private on Twitter would “vastly boost” its reach. The tech mogul soon announced that he was making his account private to investigate the claim.
This helped identify some issues with the system. Should be addressed by next week.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 2, 2023
Twitter users claimed that views increased as much as five time in private accounts
A few Twitter users said that tweet views and conversations increased by as much as five times when the accounts were made private. A few days after the social network said it would take “less harsh steps” against user accounts that violate its rules, encouraging users to delete divisive tweets and move on,
The platform just announced that anyone can now appeal their account suspension. People started reporting that their tweets received more likes and retweets when their accounts were locked, making them private and only available to their current followers. An account would often see lower interaction when it became private because doing so effectively prevented individuals from retweeting your tweets.
Ian Miles Cheong, a fan of right-wing Twitter user Elon Musk, said on Tuesday that he had noticed an increase in interaction after trying this hypothesis out for himself. Cheong displayed two related tweets and their engagement over 5 minutes. Five times as many people liked the tweet sent when Cheong was locked. This test officially brings the problem to Musk’s attention.
