X is working to further integrate its Grok AI tools into the app, with the platform now using AI sort your “Next” feed based on “predicted engagement and relevance to you,” so you no longer see your “Follow” or “For You” feed in chronological order when you log in.
This has not gone down well with some X users.
The change was announced to X-owner last week Elon Musk reports That:
“Posts from people you follow are now ranked by Grok. If you want, you can still get unfiltered chronological access.”
That means your ‘Next’ feed in the app will now be ranked based on your previous interactions, engagement with certain topics, signals from the accounts you follow, etc.
And while
It’s also worth noting that
Conceptually, this all makes sense. Every other app has significantly increased engagement by forcing users to use an algorithm-driven “For You” feed, which no longer limits them to content posted by accounts they already follow. That means any app can show each user the best posts tailored to their interests, keeping people scrolling and increasing time spent and engagement with the app.
It makes sense, but on
Some users have suggested that this could damage the core value of the app, as X is a live feed of what’s happening in the world at any given time.
According to a long time X creator Rob Perez:
“X should always be the live microblogging center of the world. Whatever else happened here or on the site, Twitter/X’s live utility was ALWAYS the cornerstone of the company. As long as this market was cornered, it would survive the growing pains.”
Perez posts primarily about live NBA games, and his thesis is that a shift away from live, in-the-moment updates will hurt X, because of how people use it for this purpose.
Theoretically, that shouldn’t be the case, as Timeline can only rank content that has already been posted, while live updates should still appear in real time. But even then, a shift from topicality to virality will impact the dynamics of the platform and could change the way it is used.
And it could also have an impact on political polarization, and the way X can influence political opinions.
A recent study thought that when posts expressing anti-democratic attitudes and partisan hostility are amplified even slightly on”
In other words, even small changes in algorithmic reinforcement can have a big impact on how users respond. And with X increasingly dominated by right-wing talking points and commentators, this update could make it an even more divisive, partisan platform.
We don’t yet know the full extent of such consequences, but it seems significant, and with
Will that be a positive or negative change?
Well, with fewer people using X in totalit appears that the platform’s influence is waning anyway, so its relative impact will be smaller than before Elon took the helm of the app. But even with a smaller audience,
How positive or negative that can be depends on your own perspective.
And if X loses its throne as the best platform for real-time engagement, which app will take its place?
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