Twitter explains how its search algorithm works after Trump's US election debacle

Standing by its commitment alongside other social media services, Twitter vigilantly controlled election-related information last week. Instead what caught the attention of the tech industry is the fact that Donald Trump's official account consistently shows up when people submitted search queries on the platform with specific keywords. To clear up the misunderstanding, the developers have issued a statement to hopefully explain what might have caused it.

This was first reported over the weekend after Joe Biden's camp received news that he had substantially more votes than the incumbent. Shortly after users spotted what many deemed "unorthodox" search results, Twitter confirmed that this was all done by a computer-controlled process based on input from people. Tech pundits quickly pointed out that Trump's account must have been frequently tagged with the keywords such as "loser" and others which led to this development, reports Reuters.

"If an account is mentioned often alongside certain terms, they can become algorithmically surfaced together as an association," read a statement from Twitter. "These associations are temporal and ever changing based on how people tweet." Other news articles also point out that Trump's official account purportedly also shows up on top when users search for the terms "liar" or "racist" on the social networking service.

Meanwhile, there have been multiple instances wherein leading Democrats have requested Twitter to review the outgoing president's tweets in the days that followed the election. Some claim the messages he posted contain misleading information about voter fraud and other related claims. As such, sources noted that some legislators have described him as a "threat to democracy" and his actions on social media as "pure disinformation."

It is currently not known if Twitter will suspend or ban him on the grounds of the allegations against his recent posts. Those who are eligible for the special treatment are "current or potential members of a local, state, national, or supra-national governmental or legislative body."

Twitter follows this protocol which keeps his account active for the meantime. However, when Biden takes office in early 2021, Trump's account will no longer meet the guidelines imposed by the company. Therefore, an investigation will likely be launched to verify the alleged violations and appropriate actions will be taken from that point on.