Overview
- X announced the change Monday in a post by head of product Nikita Bier and said the platform has implemented a visibility boost for users’ “mutuals,” meaning accounts you follow that follow you back.
- X said engineers found that mutual-connection data was omitted from the ranking logic, which made friends appear less often in reply threads and left replies dominated by unfamiliar accounts.
- The company characterizes the update as a modest data correction rather than a major redesign and has not released public metrics showing how it changes user experience or overall engagement.
- The tweak follows other recent product moves at X, including new creator compensation rules to favor original content and a built-in video editor, and comes as rival Threads rolls out community-focused controls.
- If sustained, the change could help interest-based clusters and closer conversations form on the platform, but analysts say the real test will be whether X shares follow-up data on reply relevance and engagement.