X users report followed accounts returning to feeds after algorithm change

• X creators say the For You feed is surfacing mutuals again, with icreatelife reporting a major improvement over 28 hours and GlennHasABeard saying his feed was full of mutuals again.
• The official explanation was a mutuals boost, but users reported a broader feed shift: levelsio greeted mutuals after three years, and icreatelife asked whether timelines were now almost only mutuals.
• AI creators treated the change as a distribution reset, with icreatelife telling people to repost their best AI content and pzf_ai timing a new music video around the update.
• The tradeoff is a smaller, friendlier For You page, with fabianstelzer calling the old algo “cyberpunk” and the new one “cottagecore,” while petergyang asked how the mutuals boost works for new users.

Nikita Bier’s , quoted by TechCrunch, said X had been missing mutual-follow data in the algorithm. The Verge noted Bier did not explain how that data went missing. On the creator side, icreatelife’s mutuals test asked whether 3,800 mutuals should produce at least 3,800 views, and infiniteyay posted a piece made “while we were hidden from each other.”

X framed the change as a mutuals-ranking fix, not a full feed rollback. Nikita Bier, X head of product, said X was rolling out “a small tweak” to boost visibility to mutuals, according to TechCrunch, and said missing data had made friends appear less in replies.

The public explanation was narrower than what creators described. AI artists and design accounts reported a For You page that suddenly looked like a followed-account feed.

The mechanics are still thin. The Verge reported that Bier did not explain how the mutuals data went missing, while TechCrunch reported that the change should also help interest clusters form more easily.

By Wednesday, the AI creative feed had turned into roll call.

Three posts captured the same reunion pattern:

• “friends are back on the timeline,” ClaireSilver wrote.
• The timeline was filled with the “OG AI crew circa 2023/2024,” according to bilawalsidhu.
• Mutuals were back after three years, levelsio wrote.

pzf_ai described the change as one of the best days they had spent on X in a long time because mutuals were all over the timeline pzf_ai’s timeline post.

Several posts paired the algorithm news with finished work.

• infiniteyay posted “something I made while we were hidden from each other” in a miniature-room video.
• pzf_ai’s “Flown” was a first Dreamina AI music video, made with Seedream 5 Pro for stills and Seedance 2.0 for motion inside Dreamina pzf_ai’s workflow post.
• AmirMushich shared a responsive web design project, and the reply thread turned into another “finally I’m seeing your posts” moment AmirMushich’s design demo.

For creative accounts, the best part of the update was brutally simple: work that already existed started landing in front of the people who had asked to see it.

Creators treated the feed shift as a distribution window.

icreatelife told creators to repost their best AI content, add more context, change it slightly, and publish it as a new post because the algorithm was “fantastic” and might not stay that way icreatelife’s post.

pzf_ai said they had stopped posting as much because it felt like shouting into a void, then started posting more again after the update pzf_ai’s reply. In another reply, pzf_ai said a new music video was coming later that day and hoped the timing would help it get views pzf_ai’s music-video reply.

The change also landed after creators had spread attention elsewhere. In icreatelife’s reply, Threads, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok had been growing recently, but X’s improved feed made them want to spend more time there again.

Some users liked the smaller room because it put followed accounts back in view. chrisfirst said X used to feel like a curated neighborhood before the For You page became TikTok-like chrisfirst’s neighborhood post.

In fabianstelzer’s metaphor, the old algorithm was “cyberpunk,” the new one was “cottagecore,” and the ideal product would have a slider between them.

The joke from iwwon_official took the opposite position: the app had been useful precisely because it showed stuff from people who were anything but friends.

Mutual-heavy ranking has one obvious blank spot: accounts with few mutuals.

petergyang asked Bier how the change works for new users, since they probably do not have many mutuals petergyang’s reply. The term itself is graph-dependent: icreatelife’s reply defined mutuals as people you follow who follow you back.

No public report in the rollout explains whether new users receive a substitute signal when the mutual graph is sparse. TechCrunch described the goal as boosting mutual visibility and interest clusters, not changing onboarding for thin social graphs.