According to Elon Musk, Twitter’s algorithm will soon start recommending only verified accounts in its For You feed. Musk made the announcement on Tuesday, adding that the update will take effect from April 15th.
Backing up the decision to limit the For You feed to only verified accounts, Musk claims, “this is the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over. It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle.” The Twitter chief also added, “voting in polls will require verification for same reason.”
Last week, Twitter announced that it would be removing legacy verified checkmarks from April 1st. Accounts that have been previously verified will have to pay for Twitter Blue to keep their checkmarks. Government accounts, companies, and employees must for Twitter’s expensive Blue for Business to be verified and can include affiliated subaccounts under their subscription.
Twitter’s For You feed is algorithm-controlled, showing tweets from accounts a user not only follows but other tweets the algorithm recommends based on the user’s Twitter activity. The company began rolling out the For You feed in January, an alternative to the Following feed. However, it had to release an update after users complained their timeline was defaulting to the For You feed when they quit and opened the app.
