Elon Musk released part of Twitter’s code at the end of March, as promised when he bought the social network. Observers have since wondered about the scope of this event.
On March 31, on the Github platform widely used by developers, Twitter published several parts of its source code, ie the instructions in computer language that regulate the operation of its social network. In particular, he presented his recommendation algorithm that selects and organizes tweets in the “For you” tab. Some pieces of code had already been leaked on Github a few days earlier, but Twitter had asked for their removal.
Few companies break the secrecy of their computer code, which is a competitive advantage. However, some organizations choose to develop in “open source” (free access) to allow third-party developers to improve their program. Twitter had done so in 2021 with its photo-cropping algorithm, which has been accused of racial bias.
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Specifically, Elon Musk says he was inspired by Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency whose code is freely available for anyone to verify its accuracy. Inspired by the continuous stream of videos scrolling by on Tiktok, the For You tab shows a list of tweets, half from the accounts the user is subscribed to and half from the entire network. To do this, Twitter precisely analyzes the behavior of users, assesses their “reputation” and groups people with similar interests. Each user is placed in 145,000 “communities,” social circles that are updated every three weeks and group accounts ranging from a few thousand to hundreds of millions, Twitter explains in a blog post.
The “pop” community has 332 million users, including Katy Perry, Rihanna and Justin Timberlake. The Bollywood community unites 80 million people.
“Requirements for Transparency”
“The more users in a community like a tweet, the more this tweet is attributed to this community” and promoted by the algorithm, explains Twitter. Conversely, publishing on very different topics is devalued. This operation, reminiscent of the “filter bubbles” long denounced by social network experts, maximizes user engagement but tends to reduce the diversity of content and opinions shared within a community.
The code also shows that “likes” affect a tweet’s popularity much more than “retweets” or even replies.
Finally, subscribers to the new paid offer Twitter Blue are preferred by the algorithm, as Elon Musk had indicated.
Twitter has chosen not to disclose its algorithm training data or the parameters of the associated artificial intelligence models at this time. His rationale: not to “compromise the safety and privacy of users” or “undermine (his) efforts to combat child sexual exploitation and manipulation.”
But for journalist Nicolas Kayser-Bril, a specialist in algorithms, “it is not possible to understand a program simply by reading the code. You have to be able to run it on a computer.” “Releasing large amounts of code without instructions can be worse than useless. It allows claims of transparency while making real audit impossible,” he writes in a newsletter.
The role of certain pieces of published code also raises questions, particularly those related to election periods or that allow knowing whether the author of a tweet is an elected Democrat, Republican, or Elon Musk himself.
According to the regulation on digital services that will come into force in the European Union this year, “very large platforms” with more than 45 million active users such as Facebook, Instagram or Tiktok must allow the authorities to examine their algorithms.
Recently questioned by a Senate commission of inquiry, the Cnil’s technology director, Bertrand Pailhès, said he had not yet taken a “position” on this obligation, which currently only applies to public algorithms in France. “You have to keep in mind that the release may also reveal security issues. You have to be careful with it,” he said.
Elon Musk released part of Twitter’s code at the end of March, as promised when he bought the social network. Since then, observers have been amazed at the scope of this event: On March 31, Twitter published several parts of its source code on the Github platform, which is widely used by developers, i.e. the instructions in computer language that…