Social media platform Twitter reportedly maintains a list of users and is secretly boosting its visibility.
Citing internal documents, the Platformer has reported that Twitter has listed 35 VIP users, and their posts are monitored and promoted for better visibility.
The Platformer has published 14 of the 35 names, including Twitter CEO Elon Musk, NBA star LeBron James, famous YouTuber MrBeast, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and political commentators like Ben Shapiro and Matthew Yglesias.
Also mentioned on the list is the conservative Twitter account @catturd2, Twitter investor Marc Andreessen, comedian Jaboukie Young-White, writer Derek Guy, and other journalists.
According to Platformer, Twitter’s engineers created a way to modify the site’s ranking system when they noticed a high-profile user’s engagement dropping, ensuring “that tweets from those accounts were always shown.”
However, the outlet said that Musk’s boost differed from what all the other users received.
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“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,” says the Platformer.
Last year, the outlet reported that Musk asked Twitter engineers to tweak Twitter’s code to make his posts more visible. However, in February, he reportedly fired an engineer because he was unhappy about the impressions of his tweets.
The social media platform announced it would be winding down its legacy blue-tick verified program starting in April.
“On April 1, we will begin winding down our legacy verified program and removing legacy verified checkmarks,” the company said. It added, however, that users could keep their blue checkmarks by signing up for Twitter’s paid subscription program and paying $8 monthly.
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