Twitter makes some of its source code public, promises more

Twitter has made parts of its computer code public in response to requests from its owner, Elon Musk, who believes that code transparency will lead to higher trust among users and rapid improvements to the product. Musk has also promised to release the entirety of Twitter’s source code in the next few weeks. The move will allow users and programmers to see how the social media site recommends content, including the recommendations algorithm that controls the tweets displayed on users’ timelines. However, Twitter has excluded code that would compromise user safety or privacy and details that would undermine efforts to prevent child sexual abuse material on the platform.

Twitter’s decision to make patch of its source code public aims to address lawmakers and users’ concerns over social media platforms’ content selection algorithms. Musk confirms that third parties should be able to analyze the entire code and suggest modifications to the algorithm. He also added that Twitter will update its recommendation algorithm every 24 to 48 hours based on user suggestions. The release of Twitter’s source code is also a response to a recent case where portions of Twitter’s code were leaked on Github, which took down the code last week at Twitter’s request.

However, Twitter did not include the code that powers its ad recommendations in the repositories that it uploaded to Github. Musk and some Twitter employees also held a session where users asked for recommendations and questioned how the platform’s code works. During the session, a Twitter employee responded that the code feature classifying people as Republicans or Democrats was an old feature that had not been relevant to the platform’s recommendation system, and the company will look to remove it.

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