Why was Elon Musk’s Twitter account hidden? – Business AM
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This first February, the American billionaire announced that he was switching from his personal Twitter account.
Why is this important?
Elon Musk has been trying to change Twitter since he took over in October 2022. This led to a number of controversies, such as restructuring the company’s spirit, which led to a huge wave of layoffs. The billionaire then wanted to make the social network more transparent. For this, he gave up access to the company’s internal documents. Later revelations are called Twitter Files. Today, it is the algorithm that has sparked a new controversy, which Musk will again try to respond with transparency.News: After a Tweet from a popular liberal account accused bluebird’s algorithm of favoring tweets from private accounts, Elon Musk tried it out on his own account to test the hypothesis. .
Note : Tweets from private accounts can only be seen by people who follow that account and cannot be shared. However, unlike public profiles, a user can accept or decline follow requests.
There are many theories, but no explanation yet
Detail: according to IndependentTests conducted by Twitter users showed that tweet views and interactions increased up to five times when accounts were private.
- The American billionaire explained this gesture as follows: “I switched my personal account to a private account to see if my private tweets are seen more than my public tweets,” he said on his social network. Elon Musk’s account has 127 million subscribers, almost a third of the platform BFM Businessthis makes it a good example for this test.
- The move sparked a lot of backlash, including theories about why the algorithm favors private tweets. For example, American journalist Jim Stinson believes that this move is being made “to test theories that algorithms are (mainly) designed to suppress open discussion of conservative ideas. »
- There’s Walid Phares, an American political scientist who supports the Republican Party (as does Elon Musk), who thinks there’s an “electronic land mine” left behind by past leaders.
Transparency yes, but not always
Problem: Elon Musk is again on a transparency exercise to differentiate himself from the older, more opaque management.
- After buying Twitter for $44 billion, Musk gave some journalists access to certain internal company documents, known as the Twitter files.
- The first part of the Twitter Files was about Hunter Biden, the son of the President of the United States, Joe Biden. The social network also influenced the presidential election by censoring tweets attacking Hunter in the middle of the campaign.
- It was about the second part Twitter Secret Blacklists “. A blacklist set up to prevent certain accounts or tweets from appearing too often.
- In the third part, after the attacks on the Capitol Hill, the deletion of the Twitter account of the then President of the United States, Donald Trump, was in the spotlight.
- However, despite his desire for transparency, the American billionaire suspended the accounts of some journalists who were critical of the bluebird CEO.
