CNN
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On March 24, a few weeks before Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter has posted a poll on the social networking platform: “Twitter’s algorithm should be open source,” he wrote, with options for users to vote “yes” or “no.”
Some of Twitter’s ( TWTR ) technology is already open source, meaning it’s publicly available for anyone to see, rework, and use for other purposes. But what Musk was asking, essentially, was whether the rules that computers follow to determine what you see in your Twitter feed (TWTR) should also be public. Over one million votes were counted by the time the poll closed, with an overwhelming “yes” vote (82.7%).
The implication of Musk’s suggestion and survey took on new weight last week, after the CEO of Tesla ( TSLA ) and SpaceX announced that he offered to buy all of the Twitter stock he doesn’t already own in a deal that would value the company about 41 billion dollars. On Friday, Twitter’s board announced a so-called “poison pill” measure that could make it more difficult for Musk to buy the company.
If the deal goes through, Musk has said his goal is to “unlock” Twitter’s “tremendous potential,” but his suggestions for specific changes on how to do that have been perhaps vague. A major focus of his has been strengthening free speech on the platform, and his suggestion of algorithms is central to that effort.
Hours after Musk made his bid to buy Twitter, he reiterated the idea of open-sourcing Twitter’s algorithms during an appearance on stage at the TED conference in Vancouver. He also said it should be made clearer to users when any actions are taken by Twitter that affect what you post — such as decisions to boost or de-emphasize tweets.
That way, he explained at TED, “there’s no manipulation behind the scenes, either algorithmically or manually.” Members of the TED audience clapped loudly in response. (Tweet adds tags of tweets for a variety of reasons, such as if a post contains misleading information or if a post violates the social network’s rules but is kept available after it is made determined to be “in the public interest”.)
Musk isn’t alone in calling for tech platforms to be more transparent with their algorithms. In the wake of the 2021 publication of the Facebook Papers, which showed how algorithms can drive sharing and lead users down dangerous rabbit holes, there has been new scrutiny about algorithms increasingly dominating our lives a lot. Additionally, Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey has called for more to be done to give users control over the social network, including answering in Musk’s survey quoting him with a comment of his own: “The choice of which algorithm to use (or not) should be open to everyone.”
Musk is also correct in pointing to the algorithms that underpin the company as a key part of what makes Twitter, well, Twitter. After all, algorithms, which are at their simplest a set of instructions, underpin countless products and services that depend on computers. They’re used to understand which tweets you see from people you follow on the platform and to show you tweets from others that Twitter thinks you might want to see, based on a variety of factors such as the accounts you’re with interact, how popular a tweet is, and how other people you know are interacting with a tweet. They are also used to crop images that people post and remove hateful content. And if you choose to view tweets in order of how recently they were tweeted, that’s also using an algorithm.
But making public the algorithms that shape what you see on Twitter won’t do much to make Twitter a more transparent company, according to artificial intelligence and open source software experts. Even if it ultimately helps address some of the mistrust critics have of Twitter’s content enforcement actions, the move in this direction could also create a new set of risks for Twitter.
Musk did not respond to a request for comment from CNN Business. Twitter declined to comment.
Even those who can understand the code that goes into an algorithm don’t necessarily understand how it works. Consider, for example, how there is often little more than a basic explanation from tech companies about how their algorithmic systems work and what they are used for. The people who build these systems don’t always know why they reach their conclusions, which is why they’re usually called “black boxes.”
Allowing anyone to see the site’s code is “a little pointless,” said Vladimir Filkov, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Davis. because very few people can understand how Twitter’s code base works to produce what they see on their screens.
“Open surveillance of something by definition means you can see the code, but it doesn’t mean you can understand the policies or influence the policies that lead to that code,” Filkov said. which develops tools to help developers run more effective open source software projects.
That said, those who can figure it out will be able to understand how Twitter decides which tweets to show users, said Ariel Procaccia, a professor of computer science at Harvard University whose studies include artificial intelligence and the economy.
“In those circumstances, the company had better make sure their algorithms are fair, as they would certainly be held liable if they weren’t,” Procaccia said. “I believe this would be a net positive for users.”
Filkov thinks it would be really helpful to take a page from what other open source projects often do with their code: Publicly list the policies that lead to that code.
“Understanding those policies would be easier than understanding the code,” he said.
In addition to the effectiveness of Twitter’s open source algorithms, there is also the question of what exactly would be released to the public along with the code.
If Twitter were to open source only the machine learning algorithm it uses to decide what is and isn’t allowed on the platform, for example, but not the training data that was used to inform that algorithm, it would to be “pretty meaningless,” said Allison Randal, a board member at the Software Freedom Conservancy and the Open Infrastructure Foundation. However, it gets stickier if you consider the training data. If the training data includes private tweets, publishing them it would lead to “massive negative privacy implications,” she said.
However, making Twitter’s algorithms public would not necessarily lead to any changes at Twitter. Users wouldn’t be able to make any changes to the code that runs the social network if Twitter didn’t enable such actions (such as setting a change for all users, or letting individual users enter code that controls accounts their personal).
“Users will of course be able to copy the code and modify it, but such changes will not affect the algorithms in place on Twitter itself,” Procaccia said. “It is highly unlikely that Twitter will consider deploying changes made by non-employees.”
While making its algorithms publicly available could increase trust among users, it could also give an advantage to Twitter’s competitors. As Procaccia noted, competitors can copy and exploit Twitter’s algorithms.
It should also be done carefully to avoid security breaches, Filkov said. He thinks that the release of the code will have to be accompanied by an effort to ensure that the code base is more secure.
“Understanding the code really means understanding the bugs in the code,” he said. “So someone who is a bad actor can certainly benefit from knowing the code and exposing the platform to risks, which could include taking over accounts or exposing the platform to disinformation.”
