Elon Musk will make public the algorithm that generates suggestions on Twitter
by LORENZO CIOTTI | VIEW 465
Elon Musk has announced that Twitter will make public the algorithms it uses to recommend tweets to each user, a transparent approach he has long advocated without putting it into practice. Here's the announcement: "Twitter will open source all the code it uses to recommend tweets on March 31st.
People are going to find a lot of stupid things, but we'll fix the problems as soon as we find them
." The multibillionaire explained that Twitter's algorithms were complicated and little known, even within the Californian group.He told: "Being transparent about your code will be very embarrassing at first, but should lead to rapid improvements in the quality of recommendations. We're developing a streamlined approach to highlighting the most interesting tweets." His first four months at the helm of the network were marked above all by waves of massive and abrupt layoffs, the flight of numerous advertisers, the chaotic launch of a paid subscription and technical breakdowns.
Many politicians, especially Republicans, believe it is biased against them, while human rights NGOs criticize the service, especially under Elon Musk, for not fighting enough against disinformation and harassment. Making the code open source also means that other developers or potential rivals could use it.
No major alternative to Twitter has emerged so far. Most politicians, organizations and elected figures still use it to communicate. Meanwhile, Musk is continuing to fire Twitter staff, even after confirming that the redundancies were over.
Twitter had stopped the layoffs in early January, but the internal labor force of the company has not undergone further layoffs after November 21, when Musk himself, in a speech in front of the few employees who remained at the San Francisco headquarters of the company, he had declared that the cuts to the staff were over.
Between December and January, Twitter has limited himself to terminating contracts with external companies and fixed -term workers, largely employed in the moderation of content. Last week Twitter would have resumed cuts, firing dozens of workers between the sales sectors and that of software development.