In a recent escalation of their ongoing feud, leftist billionaire Mark Cuban has accused Elon Musk, the most followed person on Twitter along with its new owner, of manipulating the platform’s algorithm to promote his own tweets and viewpoints.
CNBC reports that Elon Musk, has been accused by billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban of gaming the system to promote his own tweets and opinions. This accusation is the latest in their ongoing dispute.
Mark Cuban (Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Vox Media)
Cuban expressed frustration with Musk’s changes to Twitter. This time accusing Musk of rigging the platform to promote his own tweets and points of view. Cuban’s claims are based on his examination of Twitter’s algorithm for deciding which posts are visible. He contends that Musk benefits disproportionately from the platform’s algorithm, which favors tweets that have a high level of follower engagement.
“The largest Twitter account has the greatest reach,” Cuban wrote. “So who @elonmusk engages with on Twitter has an ENORMOUS impact on what an indeterminable number of people see in their For You Timelines.”
The new “For You” timeline on Twitter, which automatically shows users a mix of posts from within and outside their network, also drew criticism from Cuban. He thinks that this modification will increase the influence of the most popular accounts, including Musk’s.
“Those algorithms are more influential than before because of Twitter’s new ‘For You’ timeline,” Cuban said. “That will make the most followed Twitter accounts, like Musk’s, more influential.”
Cuban asserts that despite paying for Twitter’s premium service, Twitter Blue, he is losing hundreds of followers every day. He tweeted out his frustrations, but Musk had not responded to them up until recently.
Last week, Cuban wrote that it is “disingenuous to say Twitter is the home of free speech” because Musk chooses to “put his thumb on the scale.” Musk, who has repeatedly called himself a “free-speech absolutist,” responded: “Suggestions for improvement are welcome.”
Cuban’s response was that Twitter should go back to letting users manage their own timelines. “Allow people to choose whether the ‘For You’ is shown or hidden, or to allow the % of in network Vs out of network tweets shown in ‘For You’ to be user-controlled,” Cuban wrote.
As of right now, neither Cuban’s ideas nor CNBC’s requests for comment have gotten a public response from Musk. Cuban has 8.8 million followers on Twitter and continues to be a prominent user despite the controversy. He expressed worry, though, that the modified algorithm might affect his capacity to market his online pharmacy, Cost Plus Drugs.
“I figured I was/am on some Twitter s— list that doesn’t show me to new or existing users as a possible follow,” Cuban told CNBC Make It in an email. “I thought maybe, by paying the annual contract, that would change. It didn’t.”
Earlier this month, Cuban criticized Twitter’s verification process in the Musk era. As Breitbart News reported:
CNBC reports that leftist Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and a multibillionaire investor, has publicly criticized Twitter’s new subscription protocol, Twitter Blue, particularly for the way it handles verified accounts. Cuban claimed in a series of tweets that CEO Elon Musk blew an important marketing chance by not providing more incentives for users to sign up for the platform’s premium service.
“Twitter CEO Elon Musk botched a marketing opportunity, and could have gotten more users to pay for Twitter Blue’s $8 monthly subscription if he’d offered more incentives,” Cuban wrote in one of his tweets. “There were 100 ways [Musk] could have asked legacy checks for $100. Egalitarianism was the worst of them all. It’s Diet Coke level.”
Read more at CNBC here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan
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