Elon Musk has been talking about it for months; now it might finally happen.
The owner of Twitter plans to make the platform’s recommendation algorithm open source as soon as next week, the entrepreneur wrote on Tuesday.
The move is designed to pull the veil off the inner workings of the software following persistent perceived bias—first from the right end of the political spectrum and now the left—that Twitter is placing its heavy thumb on the scales of social debate.
“Our algorithm is made open source next week,” Musk posted in a Twitter reply.
Musk’s timelines have a notorious tendency to fall short, so there is no certainty he will fulfill his promise. In the past he has changed his mind (or at least acted like he did) when it came to key strategic decisions, like cancelling a new Tesla car model.
But if he does follow through, the entrepreneur will make good on a long-held promise that users will be able to see whether there is any bias in the algorithm that censors or boosts speech on the platform in either one direction or the other. And Musk's move to make the algorithm public would be highly unusual, as most tech companies keep the software code powering their algorithm a tightly held corporate secret.
Twitter algorithm should be open source
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2022
In May, Musk said any human intervention in Twitter's recommendation algorithm must be clearly identified if the platform hopes to earn back the confidence of all users: “Then, trust will be deserved,” he wrote. It was one of several instances when he pushed for open-sourcing the code before, during, and after his tumultuous acquisition of the company.
The issue of open-sourcing Twitter’s algorithm goes to the very core of Musk’s stated interest in the platform, and served at least in part—according to Musk—as the genesis for his unsolicited $44 billion takeover bid.
Before he accumulated a stake in Twitter, he posed one important question to its users
On March 24 of last year, before he had made a move on the company, Musk cast doubt on the intentions behind Twitter's algorithm and on any potential de facto bias having a major effect on public discourse. “How do we know what’s really happening?” he asked in a tweet.
Minutes later, he decided to run a poll asking users whether Twitter’s crucial recommendation code should be open-source, an opinion that ended up being shared by 83% of the 1.1 million accounts that responded.
Not to mention potential bugs in the code. Open source is the way to go to solve both trust and efficacy.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 15, 2022
Upon seeing the poll, Joe Lonsdale, the cofounder of data company Palantir, texted him, according to messages that were later revealed in court. He said he loved the idea of making Twitter's algorithm open-source, and would soon speak about the dangers of Big Tech at a policy retreat for Republican members of Congress.
“Our public squares need to not have arbitrary sketchy censorship,” Lonsdale wrote, adding that “what we have right now is hidden corruption.”
The following day Musk polled users as to whether Twitter “rigorously adheres” to the principle of free speech, caveating his question with the words: “The consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully.”
It was at that point that Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey wrote to Musk via text, on March 26, saying that he agreed with the idea that Twitter's algorithm needed to be open-source, and would arrange a meeting between Musk and the board over whether the Tesla CEO, who in his words “gets its importance,” could join as a director.
“I believe it must be an open-source protocol, funded by a foundation of sorts that doesn’t own the protocol, only advances it,” Dorsey argued in his message, to which Musk replied “super interesting idea.”
What followed next is well known—Musk bought Twitter.
If the billionaire entrepreneur does make good on his promise next week, the world will finally get an answer as to what great and powerful software code lies right behind the curtain.
