Elon Musk is rumored to have fired Twitter official who discovered political bias in tweets

Job cuts at Twitter have become the talk of the town as the social media platform is reportedly looking to slash its 7,500-strong workforce in half. Various reports state that all employees at the company received an email on November 3 communicating that they would be informed of their employment status by Friday, November 4.

While different positions have been threatened, one potential sacking has raised several eyebrows. Legal expert Max Kennerly tweeted about the possible dismissal of a Twitter employee named Rumman Chowdhury, who Kennerly said had worked as the company's Director of Software Engineering.

While the sacking is yet to be confirmed as of now, the concern appears to be about the employee's previous work at the company. In October 2021, Chowdhury and a team of researchers found "political bias" while analyzing the social media platform's algorithm.

One of their observations from the detailed study was the algorithm's preference for posts from users who favor the right wing of the political spectrum. In comparison, tweets from individuals aligned towards the left received lesser amplification.

It's still unknown whether Twitter has made any algorithm changes since and why such a detailed study was commissioned in the first place.

If Elon Musk has indeed fired the person in question, it might have been due to something other than the employee's earlier findings. However, the decision has been looked down upon harshly by many users. The Tesla CEO has spoken about taking radical steps to cut costs and increase the financial sustainability of the platform since completing his $44 billion takeover on October 27.

In light of the current situation, dismissing the person who discovered the platform's political bias may add fuel to the fire. Earlier in the day, there have been widespread reports of Twitter servers reporting connectivity issues and failure to play content properly.

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Twitter has also decided to monetize the blue tick

So far, the social media platform has used the blue tick selectively, and users haven't had to pay anything for it. That's about to change based on reports earlier in the week which discussed monthly charges.

The blue tick is used by individuals, companies, and even organizations all over the world. Users will have to pay a monthly charge to preserve their verified account status, but a few things need to be clarified about the final pricing. It will be interesting to see if the charges will be flat for all or will vary with the type of accounts.

The Twitter Blue experience could also get costlier in the coming days if rumors are to be believed. Introduced in selected regions in 2021, the premium experience was initially available at $3 per month. The rate was increased to $5 earlier this year and is rumored to go up to $8.