“Twitter’s algorithm will be open source”

Elon Musk is back in the news, and it is that it has revealed an important improvement for its social network Twitter: Twitter’s algorithm will be open source next week. This implies that the source code of the social network will be publicly accessible for anyone. In other words, making Twitter’s algorithm open source would make its technology publicly accessible to users around the world. They will be able to see it, modify it and redistribute it.

It was a long time ago, in March 2022, when he polled his followers about their opinion about making the algorithm open source. Of course, he also warned users in a tweet yesterday:

“Prepare to be disappointed at first when our algorithm goes open source next week, but it will improve quickly.”

Social media experts have previously claimed that making Twitter’s algorithm open source can help researchers. How to access the bowels of the platform and help them decipher how hate speech spreads on the platform. Added to this are new ways to counteract it.

An open source Twitter for greater freedom of expression and transparency

This movement is linked to the main reason for purchase that Elon Musk had from Twitter after defining himself as a “freedom of expression absolutist“. Musk indicated that Twitter I was manipulating the algorithm in certain ways that the user was unaware of. That is why one way to solve it completely is going open source.

“I am concerned that the de facto bias of the Twitter algorithm will have a major effect on public discourse. How do we know what is really happening?”

“You’re being manipulated by the algorithm in ways you don’t realize,” Musk said in May 2022. “I’m not suggesting malice in the algorithm, but rather that it’s trying to guess what you might want to read, and at the same time doing so inadvertently manipulates/amplifies your views without you realizing this is happening.”

“Open source is the way to go to resolve both trust and efficiency.”

In the past, a former company executive lamented that Twitter had not made such a move.

The co-founder and former head of TwitterJack Dorsey, revealed a few months ago that what he most regretted was for Twitter to become a company. Specifically, in his early days he thought of the platform as a “open source protocol“.

“A transparent system, both in policy and operations, is the right way to earn trust. Whether it’s company owned or open protocol doesn’t matter as much as deliberately deciding to be open about every decision and why it was made,” he tweeted. Dorsey last year.

This announcement comes after other open source social media platforms have gained popularity. One of them is Mastodon. This became very popular for a sector of users after Elon Musk acquired Twitter in October last year.