Brian Morris

So I spent some time studying the new Twitter/X algorithm today since the latest version was published about a week ago on Github (#updates--may-15th-2026" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">github.com/xai-org/x-algo…). My goal was to answer why so many people have seemingly seen such a dramatic drop in their posts' reach. The first answer, which is actually somewhat unrelated to the ranking algorithm on Github, is the auto-translate feature, rolled out worldwide on April 7, 2026 (x.com/nikitabier/sta…). Before that date, if you wrote in English about, say, the Trump-Xi Beijing summit, you were competing for attention with maybe 5,000 other English-language accounts writing on geopolitics. After that date, your post is competing for attention with other posts on the same topic IN EVERY LANGUAGE ON EARTH. For some topics that do command global attention like geopolitics, that's a very brutal multiplier: you used to be one of 5,000, you're suddenly one of 50,000 (something of that order): MUCH more difficult to stand out. Secondly, the number of followers you have matters far less than it used to: each post now has to earn its audience reader by reader, on the predicted engagement of the post, and how its topic matches what each reader has recently been engaging with. Here is how the algorithm works, in simple terms: when you, as a reader, open your feed, the algorithm doesn't load "posts from accounts you follow." Instead it runs a 2-stage prediction of what posts you're likely to engage with in that very moment. The first stage is the retrieval stage. The system narrows billions of posts on X/Twitter that day down to roughly 1,500 candidates by matching the semantic content of each post - what it's about - against what you as a reader have recently engaged with. Some candidate posts come from accounts you follow; others are pulled from across the platform by pure topic similarity to your recent interests. You can test this retrieval stage easily: start disproportionally engaging with - say - Brad Pitt videos and you'll bit by bit see your timeline flooded with Brad Pitt content, most of it from accounts you've never followed and never heard of. Then there's the ranking stage. Each of these candidate posts for your feed is fed through a Grok-based model that tries to understand if you'll engage with the post. It looks at 15 engagement metrics: 1) P(favorite) — the reader likes the post 2) P(reply) — the reader replies to it 3) P(repost) — the reader reposts it 4) P(quote) — the reader quote-tweets it 5) P(click) — the reader clicks a link in it 6) P(profile_click) — the reader taps through to your profile 7) P(video_view) — the reader watches the video 8) P(photo_expand) — the reader expands an image 9) P(share) — the reader shares it (DM, off-platform, etc.) 10) P(dwell) — the reader stops scrolling and lingers on the post 11) P(follow_author) — the reader follows you after seeing it 12) P(not_interested) — the reader marks "not interested" 13) P(block_author) — the reader blocks you 14) P(mute_author) — the reader mutes you 15) P(report) — the reader reports the post Fifteen predicted actions, each multiplied by a weight, summed: that sum is the score that determines in which priority a post will be seen among other candidates. Please note that posting something with a video or an image can give your post an advantage as 2 actions are specifically for these: video_view and photo_expand. No video or photo and you don't get a score for these. Also, naturally, having a video maximizes the chance that a user will "dwell" on your post to watch it. Also note that 4 of these actions carry negative weights (not_interested, block_author, mute_author and report): meaning that if the model expects a post to generate a lot of negativity, it'll get de-boosted quite dramatically. But note, first and foremost, what's NOT in there: none of the things that, naively, one might think a serious information platform would weigh. There is no P(this post is true and well-sourced). No P(the author actually knows what they're talking about). No P(this person has spent a decade building a body of work that has held up). No P(this account has earned the right to be taken seriously on this topic). No P(the author has a large following from credible people). The model does not seem to care - at all - about any of that. Every post starts from zero. You could have ten years of rigorous, well-sourced analysis behind you - or you could be just an uneducated rando who registered yesterday. To this algorithm, you're both just a bag of engagement probabilities. Now, sure, to be fair, there is a "brand" effect that's not covered by the algorithm: someone who has in fact built a brand will naturally have better engagement metrics because people recognize their account. But that's an indirect, second-order effect. And crucially, it's legacy: those "brands" were built under earlier versions of the algorithm that gave followers and reputation more weight. Lastly, several other features of the new algorithm compound the dilution, none of them visible from outside but all consequential. The May 15 update added an "impression bloom filter," tightening the rule that once a reader has been served a post, the system won't serve it to them again. Before, a strong post could marinate in someone's feed across multiple refreshes and accumulate engagement on the second or third pass. Now it basically gets one shot. Also, your own posts compete with each other. An "Author Diversity Scorer" inside the ranking stage attenuates the score of every subsequent post of yours that ends up in a reader's candidate pool. In plain terms: if multiple of your posts land in a reader's candidate pool, the system shows one at full strength and dampens the others. So don't post several times consecutively on the same topic. And, last but not least, another huge impact on reach is that, in the old algorithm, when someone reposted or quote-tweeted you, your post was broadcast to their followers' timelines - a repost from an account with 100,000 followers was a huge boost. In the new algorithm, that mechanism is vastly demoted: reposts - like every post - need to go through the retrieval and ranking stage mentioned above, so a repost from a big account is a long way from the boost it used to be. This is especially brutal for low-effort quote tweets, which used to function as cheap amplification: now they often can't even clear the retrieval stage - they simply don't contain enough novel semantic content for the system to match them to anyone's interests. So, putting it all together, the reach collapse comes from many forces stacking at once: - Auto-translate makes your posts compete for attention against an order of magnitude more content - The retrieval stage matches posts by topic, not by who follows you - The ranking stage scores purely on predicted engagement with no weight for credibility, expertise, or track record - The bloom filter narrows every post's window to one strong shot - The diversity scorer penalizes prolific posting - Reposts no longer carry much distribution power Each of these alone would dent your reach. Combined, they amount to a complete reset: your audience that you built painstakingly over years basically doesn't matter much anymore, and it's much - much - harder to stand out even if you're a big account. People structurally rewarded by this algorithm are folks who: - Post visually (videos/images) - Post on globally popular topics because they clear the retrieval stage easily - Provoke strong emotional reactions - likes, replies, reposts - Don't care about accuracy or seriousness because the algorithm doesn't measure it - Don't care about their existing audience because every post is judged in isolation anyway In short this new algorithm, like so many on social media, is all about maximizing whether people will engage with something - not about whether they should.

Newly declassified CIA and British intelligence files reveal that the KGB systematically used staged same-sex “compromise” operations against Western diplomats, journalists, and scholars during the Cold War. direct.mit.edu/jcws/article/2…

Via the @nytimes Editorial Board, May 20, 2026 "There Has Never Been an Example of Presidential Corruption Like This" Gift linked to entire NYT article in Stuart's post below mine ⬇️

(Gift Article) There Has Never Been an Example of Presidential Corruption Like This Trump's corruption and subversion of democratic tradition risk becoming the norm. By The New York Times Editorial Board nytimes.com/2026/05/20/opi…

This New York Times piece is worth your time. Here’s what is happening, as simply as I can put it. Back in January, Trump sued the IRS, an agency he controls, demanding $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns a number of years ago. IRS lawyers did their jobs. They wrote a memo laying out the defenses that could beat the suit, including the fact that Trump filed too late. His own lawyer was in court when the leaker pleaded guilty in October 2023, more than two years before Trump sued. The Justice Department never showed up to court. Never argued back. Never used the defenses sitting on their desk. The judge got suspicious and ordered both sides to explain whether they were actually opposing each other or just colluding. The day before that brief was due, Trump dropped the suit. Same day, his Justice Department announced a $1.776 billion taxpayer-funded “anti-weaponization fund.”  Trump gets a formal apology. The IRS agrees to drop any audits of him and his family, even though a 2024 Times report found a loss in an ongoing audit could cost him over $100 million. The acting Attorney General, Trump’s former criminal defense attorney, picks the five commissioners who decide who gets paid. Trump can fire any of them. Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are not ruled out. This is the most corrupt thing I’ve ever seen from an American president. Where in the hell are my Republican colleagues? nytimes.com/2026/05/19/adm…

"Remember that humility begins with knowing God, living under him, and listening to what he says. This means you are actually speaking with him and asking for help and grace. At first, you wouldn’t think that a little complaining has anything to do with God, which is exactly the point. All of life is lived before God and reveals our hearts toward him. What feels like a little complaining about other people or life in general is in truth complaining against God. He is, after all, the one who is in charge and over all things." - Ed Welch In case you missed it last week, read an excerpt from The Humility Project for Men at blog.newgrowthpress.com/humility-is-th…. @ccef

Can we talk about how/why Dale Partridge keeps weaseling his way onto speaker lineups despite his lengthy public track record of insanity? Homeboy is nothing if not an expert in self-promotion. In the early 2000s, moved from one heavily self-promoted venture to another, including a rock climbing businesses and a cause-based T-shirt company called Sevenly, where he was caught plagiarizing tons of content. According to Ministry Watch, Partridge brazenly stole quotes from everyone from Ricky Martin to John Wooden and MLK and passed them off as his own. Whoops. 🤦‍♀️ A now-deleted Instagram post about overcoming discouragement was nearly word-for-word from John Piper’s DesiringGod.org. A statement that followers “were declared ‘not guilty’ by the highest court in the universe” came from the late theologian A.W. Tozer. Apparently it never occurred to Partridge to give proper attribution. Then he enters seminary, earns a "certificate," (NOT an MDiv), and decides this certificate qualifies him to open his own seminary, which is marketed as a graduate level program. If you want to attend his "seminary," there's no clear cut way to do it, but you can "start a free 7 day trial" on his website, so there's that. He launched himself into the limelight by saying bombastic things about yoga pants, women, and interracial marriage on social media, and he somehow continues to weasel his way onto speaker lineups, despite an increasingly obvious awareness that he's something of a liability to the headier charlatans he tries to hang around. Wartburg Watch described Partridge as "an undereducated Doug Wilson," and that pretty much tracks. Most of these guys aren't at all skilled in apologetics or particularly skilled in theology. They're primarily marketers. Why people keep buying their product is beyond me.

@sarahdespres @PeterHotez Kennedy’s stated goal was to displace competent professionals—the “permanent undersecretariat” of dedicated civil servants—in favor of kooks and cranks.