Over the last few weeks, Twitter users have reported that a strange glitch in the algorithm has affected the amount of engagement their tweets receive. And it seems to be the opposite way one would assume the algorithm operates.
“Setting your account to private vastly improves your reach by a factor of 5x,”
one person tweeted.
“In my week of being private, engagement with my tweets considerably went up about 2x,”
another wrote.
Some theorised why the strange anti-algorithm issue may be true, starting with the fact that by locking your tweets, Twitter must boost them to your current followers since they cannot reach new people.
"My hypothesis is that anyone following you after your account is locked MUST dig your content, by definition. So it's boosted amongst your followers. You can't get new ones, but old ones see more,"
Ed Latimore wrote.
Despite the new theory seemingly working, some people argued against making tweets private for the sake of higher engagement.