Twitter Makes Some Of Its Source Code Public, Says More Will Follow
The company CEO Elon Musk is of the belief that code transparency would lead to higher trust among users and rapid improvements on the platform.
Twitter on Friday made public some of its source code in order to allow users and programmers to test and suggest modifications that can help change the way tweets show up on their timelines, reported news agency Reuters.
Twitter uploaded the code in two repositories on code-sharing platform Github. They include the source code for many parts of Twitter, including the recommendations algorithm which controls the tweets that users see on their timeline, the company said in a blog post, according to the news agency.
The company CEO Elon Musk is of the belief that code transparency would lead to higher trust among users and rapid improvements on the platform.
While championing code transparency, Musk also said that it addresses common concerns from users and lawmakers, who are increasingly scrutinising social media platforms over how algorithms select the content that users see, reported Reuters.
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Making the announcement on Twitter on Friday Musk wrote, "independent third parties should be able to determine, with reasonable accuracy, what will probably be shown to users."
"No doubt, many embarrassing issues will be discovered, but we will fix them fast!" he further tweeted.
Most of the recommendation algorithm will be made open source today. The rest will follow.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 31, 2023
Acid test is that independent third parties should be able to determine, with reasonable accuracy, what will probably be shown to users.
No doubt, many embarrassing issues will be… https://t.co/41U4oexIev
Musk also said Twitter will update its recommendation algorithm based on user suggestions every 24 to 48 hours, reported Reuters.
On Friday, Musk and some Twitter employees held a session on Spaces, Twitter's audio chat feature, asking users to bring recommendations and questions about how the platform's code works.
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