X boosts mutual followers’ posts to make feed feel communal

X is changing its feed to surface more posts from mutual followers, a small adjustment the company says should make the platform feel more communal. Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, said the system had been missing data that should have helped identify those relationships, leaving friends less visible in reply threads and pushing conversations toward people users do not recognize.

Bier said the change is meant to do two things at once: reduce the sense that reply sections have become a battleground, and make it easier for clusters to form around shared interests. That framing matters because X’s feed already blends in-network posts from accounts users follow with out-of-network recommendations, so the update appears aimed at putting more weight back on the social graph that users explicitly built.

The move also fits into a year of repeated changes to X’s ranking system. Elon Musk said in January 2026 that X would open its new algorithm to the public, including code for organic and advertising post recommendations, and repeat that release every four weeks with developer notes. X’s recommendation code is also publicly available on GitHub, underscoring the company’s push for transparency even as the system keeps changing.

That transparency push has not insulated X from scrutiny. Reuters reported in January 2026 that the European Commission extended a retention order tied to algorithms and illegal content through the end of 2026. Reuters also reported that the European Union fined X $140 million over Digital Services Act transparency obligations involving its blue checkmark subscription, ad repository transparency and the company’s failure to provide researchers access to public data.

The latest tweak suggests X is still trying to balance two competing goals: broad, algorithmic discovery on one side and the pull of people users actually choose to follow on the other. By giving mutuals more visibility, X is betting that a stronger sense of familiarity will make the feed feel less combative without giving up the reach that comes from recommendation-heavy distribution.