Musk tweets about how to ‘fix’ micro-blogging site; Dorsey defends Twitter’s algorithm

New Delhi: Billionaire Elon Musk has once again taken to Twitter to criticize the platform itself. Earlier today, Musk tweeted about giving tips to ‘fix’ users’ Twitter feed by asking them to change their feed to a reverse chronological order by selecting the ‘Latest Tweets’ option on their home screen. Musk also stated that the users “are being manipulated by the algorithm” in ways they do not understand.

Very important to fix your Twitter feed:

1. Tap home button.
2. Tap stars on upper right of screen.
3. Select “Latest tweets”.

You are being manipulated by the algorithm in ways you don’t realize.

Easy to switch back & forth to see the difference.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 14, 2022

Meanwhile, the founder of the platform, Jack Dorsey replied to his tweet defending the algorithm. He stated that it was designed to save time for people when they are away from the app for a while. A few hours later, Musk clarified that he wasn’t pointing out any problem in the algorithm.

it was designed simply to save you time when you are away from app for a while.

pull to refresh goes back to reverse chron as well.

— jack⚡️ (@jack) May 14, 2022

Very important to fix your Twitter feed:

1. Tap home button.
2. Tap stars on upper right of screen.
3. Select “Latest tweets”.

You are being manipulated by the algorithm in ways you don’t realize.

Easy to switch back & forth to see the difference.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 14, 2022

This comes days after Elon Musk announced his acquisition of Twitter to be “temporarily on hold.” Besides, he waited for more details about the proportion of spam or fake accounts on the platform.

Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of usershttps://t.co/Y2t0QMuuyn

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022

“Any sensible random sampling process is fine. If many people independently get similar results for % of fake/spam/duplicate accounts, that will be telling. I picked 100 as the sample size number, because that is what Twitter uses to calculate <5% fake/spam/duplicate,” he added as a reply to the tweet announcing the status of the acquisition.

Musk later reported that he got a call from Twitter lawyers who informed him that he has violated an NDA by revealing the fact that Twitter’s bot check sample is 100.