Elon Musk promises to make recommendations transparent

It is a transparent approach that he has long advocated without putting it into practice. Elon Musk announced on Friday that his Twitter platform would make public the algorithms used to recommend tweets to each user. “Twitter will open source all the computer code used to recommend tweets on March 31,” said the unpredictable owner and boss of the social network.

“People are going to find out a lot of silly things, but we’ll fix the problems as soon as we find them,” he added.

“Improvements in the quality of recommendations”

Opening the service’s black box was one of his stated motivations for buying Twitter last year, as was the company’s “potential” and the defense of a more absolute vision of freedom of expression. But his first four months at the head of the network were above all marked by waves of massive and abrupt layoffs, the flight of numerous advertisers, the chaotic launch of a paid subscription and technical breakdowns.

The multi-billionaire explained that Twitter’s recommendation algorithms were complicated and poorly understood, even within the California group. “Being transparent about code is going to be very embarrassing at first, but should lead to quick improvements in the quality of recommendations,” he said. “We are developing a simplified approach to highlighting more interesting tweets,” he continued.

A calming measure

The transparency measure could appease authorities and lawmakers who want to know how the platform works. Many elected officials, especially Republicans, believe it is biased against them, while human rights NGOs criticize the service, especially under Elon Musk, for not sufficiently combating misinformation and harassment.

Making the code “open source” also means that other developers or potential rivals could use it.

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