under 1,000 followers? the feed will show you now

𝕏 pushed another update to its open-source algo this week, and it answers 1 question: how does a small account get seen? 👀

every time someone opens For You, 1 post from a small account can get pulled up near the top.

1 'small account' slot in every feed

when someone opens For You, 𝕏 pulls a pool of candidate posts and scores each one. before the final order locks, 1 post can get a 'lift' (boost).

your post qualifies if it's:

• an original post, not a reply or a repost
• from an account with 1,000 followers or fewer
• 48hrs old or newer
• under 1,000 views from For You feed
• already in the top 85% of that viewer's pool

How it works

1. X scores every candidate post for that viewer and ranks them.
2. It counts the posts with a score above zero. Posts zeroed out earlier don't count.
3. It multiplies that count by 0.85. The result is the cutoff.
4. A small-account post can only be lifted if its rank is inside that cutoff.

Example:

• 400 posts are scored for one viewer.
• 400 × 0.85 = 340.
• A post ranked 1st to 340th can get the lift. One ranked 341st to 400th can't.

how the lift works

• if more than 1 post qualifies, the highest-scoring one gets the slot
• its score gets raised to match whatever post is sitting in 16th place
• if it already scored higher, it keeps its own

say you have 600 followers. you posted 40mins ago and you're at 200 views. in someone's pool you're ranked 80th out of 400. the lift moves you to 16th.

it runs on every feed load, for every viewer. 1 slot each time, so every small account that qualifies is in the running.

what puts you in queue

1. post original content. replies and reposts can't take the slot
2. your window is the first 48hrs and the first 1,000 views
3. the lift moves a post up once it's in the pool. it gets there through your followers and 𝕏's recommendation systems
4. when 2 small posts qualify, the higher score wins. 𝕏's biggest ranking weights sit on replies, quotes, shares and follows, so write something people want to answer

the experiment 𝕏 is running

there's a newer feature in the code that only pulls brand-new posts:

• under 8 likes
• under 500 views
• 2hrs old or newer

it's switched off by default, so only viewers in 𝕏's experiment get it right now. maybe they switch this on next time too!!

well, small accounts...

go grab your spot in the timelines! and if you reply to big accounts for reach, read this too.

you don't have to read the whole codebase yourself. have your claude read it and break it down for you in simple words.

this part of the code is open source. have your llm/agent read it, learn it, understand it: github.com/xai-org/x-algorithm