Nikita Bier says X made a “tweak to boost visibility of your posts to your mutuals”, or those who users follow back, to avoid replies becoming a “battleground”
X has made a “tweak” to its algorithm to boost the visibility of posts to users' “mutuals” …
TechCrunchLucas Ropek
Context & Ripple Effects
Since Nikita Bier joined X as head of product, the company has been making product and distribution changes around how posts are consumed, including link presentation and reply controls. Bier has also tied a rebuilt recommendation system to an effort to bring journalists back to the service.
The new adjustment narrows the immediate audience priority to reciprocal connections rather than leaving visibility entirely to the broader recommendation and reply dynamics. It matters because X has already experimented with making replies more manageable through sorting and block-related changes.
First-order effects
Posts will be more likely to reach users who follow the author back, giving reciprocal relationships greater weight in distribution.
For X users whose conversations attract contentious replies, the change is intended to make the experience less dominated by hostile or combative reply activity.
Second-order effects
Creators, publishers, and journalists may have a stronger incentive to cultivate reciprocal follow relationships, not just broad follower counts, if those ties deliver more dependable reach.
The change makes X's recommendation choices more central to audience-building: accounts relying on discovery outside their mutual network could see comparatively less visibility if mutual weighting displaces other ranking signals.
Third-order effects
If extended beyond this tweak, X could move toward a more relationship-graph-led feed, balancing its historically open public-discourse model against a product goal of safer, more durable social interactions.
That direction could make it harder to separate moderation outcomes from ranking outcomes: reducing reply conflict through distribution changes may improve participation for some users while limiting the reach of voices outside established networks.
The trend: This is part of a broader shift from maximizing open, engagement-driven conversation toward using recommendation systems to privilege trusted social ties and manage participation quality.
We're rolling out a small tweak to boost visibility of your posts to your mutuals (people who you follow back). We noticed this data was missing from the algo and it made your friends appear less in your replies. This resulted in the reply section feeling more like a
my own feed is suddenly feeling the most ~mutual~ it has felt in like over a year, i swear. it's as if the fog has lifted and i am discovering you all again, anew. welcome back everyone. [image]
the fog of war lifts after years of brutal timeline combat, you can finally see your mutuals, no longer just out of view in the dense fog. relief, calm, washes over you. but in an instant, as you see their posts, it turns to disgust. “these are the retards ive been posting with?”
When the Head of Product at the follow people to see what they post website is tasked with making you see posts from people you follow on the follow people to see their posts website [video]
Great to have a new non-rage baiting algo. But man does it suck that all these networks are beholden to tuning that has so much emotional influence. Hi everyone.
over the last ~15 of so years the algo made following or online friendship kind of pointless, it became basic decoration (esp cuz fb pushed the gas on engagement without second thought). the recommender took over & changed society / culture like never before. ppl started