Twitter's Open Source Algorithm Is a Red Herring | WIRED

Last Friday afternoon, Twitter posted the source code of its recommendation algorithm to GitHub. Twitter said it was “open sourcing” its algorithm, something I would typically be in favor of. Recommendation algorithms and open source code are major focuses of my work as a researcher and advocate for corporate accountability in the tech industry. My research has demonstrated why and how companies like YouTube should be more transparent about the inner workings of their recommendation algorithms—and I’ve run campaigns pressuring them to do so. Mozilla, the nonprofit where I am a senior fellow, famously open-sourced the Netscape browser code and invited a community of developers around the world to contribute to it in 1998, and it has continued to push for an open internet since. So why aren’t I impressed or excited by Musk’s decision? If anything, Twitter’s so-called “open sourcing” is a clever red herring to distract from its recent moves away from transparency. Just weeks ago, Twitter quietly announced it was shutting down the free version of its API, a tool that researchers around the world have relied on for years to conduct research into harmful content, disinformation, public health, election monitoring, political behavior, and more. The tool it is being replaced with
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