'Robbing Your Followers': X Product Chief Blasts Top Influencer Over Crypto Scam Promo

Director of Product at X Nikita Bier publicly accused influencer Ian Miles Cheong of promoting scam cryptocurrencies, linking the collapse of his account's reach not to system bugs but to aggressive spam behavior. The conflict unfolded amid the publication of X's recommendation algorithm update on GitHub, which the crypto community met with deep skepticism and accusations that Elon Musk failed to deliver on transparency promises. The dispute began after well-known blogger Ian Miles Cheong (1.2 million followers) complained that X's algorithms were secretly suppressing the reach of his posts. The response from Bier was harsh, directly linking Cheong's declining metrics to his abrupt transition from political commentary to aggressive meme coin promotion.

Oh?

— Ian Miles Cheong (@ianmiles) May 17, 2026 Bier argued that creators naturally lose engagement after participating in questionable activity and "robbing" from their followers. Cheong responded by attempting to redirect attention, calling the accusations an effort to distract from platform bugs. He also reminded Bier that he himself previously promoted BelieveApp and launched his own tokens.

Why the new AI algorithm shrinks crypto influencer reach on X

This local dispute highlighted a much deeper issue - X's GitHub source code and how the platform's new AI-driven filters actually operate. On one side, the platform has introduced aggressive automated moderation tools:

• Grok AI Module: The neural network based on xAI's Grok now deeply analyzes post context. Posts promoting questionable financial schemes, meme coins, and clickbait are automatically downranked for failing Brand Safety standards required by major advertisers.
• Author Diversity Scorer: The algorithm artificially limits reach (attenuation) for an author's subsequent posts if a previous post "went viral." The system effectively demands pauses between posts and penalizes excessive activity. At the same time, the situation became a trigger for growing skepticism across the crypto industry. Users point out that Elon Musk failed to keep his promise to update the algorithm's code monthly - the first version was released in January 2026, and the repository has not been updated since. Analysts and developers, including , have identified major gaps in the public release. The real ranking formula weights remain hidden, while the open-source code itself reportedly differs from the production version. As a result, high-quality crypto content is increasingly pushed out of the "For You" feed, replaced by political conflicts and clickbait. Critics argue that this leaves the platform vulnerable to coordinated attacks against reputable accounts through mass reporting campaigns and suspensions.