Elon Musk’s Twitter to make its algorithm open source next week

The Twitter algorithm will be made open-source next week. The move could effectively bring more transparency to the social media platform. 

Musk has been even more of a constant presence on Twitter since acquiring the social media platform last year. In a recent post, Musk poked fun at the amount he paid for his Twitter acquisition, noting that he essentially “acquired the world’s largest nonprofit for $44 billion.” 

The CEO’s joke caught thousands of responses from Twitter users, one of whom noted that to really impress everyone, Musk should make the social media company open-source. Musk responded positively to this statement, though he also set expectations. 

“Prepare to be disappointed at first when our algorithm is made open source next week, but it will improve rapidly!” Musk wrote. 

This is not the first time that Musk has spoken about making Twitter open source. Musk has referenced an open-source Twitter several times over the past months. The CEO has also noted that he aims to make Twitter one of the most transparent platforms in the industry. 

Musk actually polled his followers about the idea of an open-source Twitter in March last year. The poll attracted 1,117,574 votes, 82.7% of which were in favor of an open-source Twitter algorithm. Prior to his poll, Musk had expressed his reservations about the potential biases on Twitter. 

“I’m worried about de facto bias in ‘the Twitter algorithm’ having a major effect on public discourse. How do we know what’s really happening?” Musk wrote then. 

Rutgers University professor and social media hate speech expert Thomas Davidson previously informed Insider that an open-source algorithm could actually help the social media platform counter extremist speech. It could also help researchers identify how extremist speech spreads. Davidson further noted that the move could help the company improve how Twitter could track false positives, such as how informal language used by specific groups can be misclassified as hate speech. 

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