Elon Musk posted that Twitter will open source its recommendation algorithm next week. The recommendation algorithm is fundamental to what recommended content users see, and it was a focus of Musk’s Twitter rant before he acquired the company.
Musk believes that people should not use Twitter’s recommendation function and should modify their timeline to sort by time, rather than by the recommendations provided by Twitter.
But after the acquisition of Twitter Musk also fell to launch “For You”, this module is still recommended by the algorithm, but Musk said that if users switch to the timeline sort, then re-open Twitter will also continue to retain the timeline, will not automatically switch to the recommendations.
The fundamental purpose of this approach should be not to create an information cocoon for the user, some APPs will only ever recommend content that the user may be interested in through the algorithm, and will eventually only feed the user a specific type of information, which is creating an information cocoon.
The decision to open source Twitter’s recommendation algorithm should be a big one, open source and public are two different things, if it is public then interested users can check how Twitter recommends.
If it is open source that means other platforms and anyone can refer to Twitter’s recommendation algorithm, and then modify it according to their own needs to bring their own use.
Many platforms regard their recommendation algorithms as core competencies, and I didn’t expect Musk to open source directly.
However, Musk also play precautions in advance: first of all, be prepared for disappointment, but the subsequent algorithm will be quickly improved.