Twitter bug impacts number of retweets, likes; shows wrong profiles in feed

A Twitter bug is making several users distraught after they began seeing an inaccurate count of retweets, likes, and unexpected notifications. As per the Twitter users who reported the issue on the microblogging website, the widespread bug is affecting the number of likes and retweets, including cases wherein the retweets have disappeared from the profile. Twitter has acknowledged the issue and said the glitch will be followed up “soon”.

Among other issues, several Twitter users are seeing the profiles in their feed that they never followed. The profiles show up as retweets that appear to have been made by the same profile, as users have pointed out. Initially, it was speculated that the new algorithms recently introduced to Twitter have messed up with the number of retweets, likes, and other profile-related information. However, Twitter has told TechCrunch that the bug did not originate from the algorithmic change. The bug was found responsible for “mislabeling” the “social proof” tag on the retweets.

The social proof makes sure a user sees who retweeted a post, in addition to the tweets from them and other accounts the user follows. The bug caused the retweets to appear as if they had been made by an account that a user does not follow, Twitter explained to TechCrunch. This essentially meant that the retweets were from the accounts that a user follows, however, the label for the profile that retweeted appeared different from the original.