Twitter data appears to support claims new algorithm inflated reach of Elon Musk’s tweets

Author Kathy Nickels
Date 21 February 2023

Data collected by Queensland University of Technology node of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making & Society (ADM+S) researcher via Twitter’s API appears to support media claims the reach of the tweets of the platform’s billionaire owner Elon Musk have been artificially inflated.

Last week, the tech news site Platformer reported 80 Twitter engineers had been engaged to tweak the platform’s algorithm after Musk noticed a tweet from the US president, Joe Biden, about the Super Bowl outperformed his own, despite Musk having more than three times the number of followers.

The report claimed engineers deployed a new algorithm to artificially inflate Musk’s tweets by a factor of 1,000, ensuring that more than 90% of Musk’s 128.9 million followers would see them. The change reportedly also ensured users who don’t personally follow Musk would see his tweets in their “for you” tab.

Assoc Prof Timothy Graham, Associate Investigator at the Queensland University of Technology node of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making & Society (ADM+S) said data he extracted from Twitter using its application program interface appeared to support much of this reporting.

The graphs produced by Assoc Prof Graham show that in the hours when the algorithm change was reported to have occurred, Musk’s impressions went up 737%, and his daily impressions have close to tripled.

Graham, who typically researches bot behaviour and other trends on social media, says he was able to track Musk’s tweet data via access to Twitter’s API, which he can currently access for free.

Twitter has announced it will cut off free access to this service – including for researchers. Instead it will charge a minimum US$100 a month for access.

“The Twitter API may shut down any moment – if this is the last data I ever collect it’ll totally be worth it,” Graham tweeted last week.

Read the full story published in The Guardian

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