Twitter’s recommendation algorithm has been making headlines lately, especially after the social media platform released its source code as promised by its owner Elon Musk. And among the many revelations found in the code, one interesting discovery is that Twitter is specifically tracking how Musk’s tweets are performing.
The code shows that Twitter is monitoring four different user groups: power users, Republicans, Democrats, and a group specifically for Musk’s tweets. While Musk claims he did not know about this metric tracking portion of the algorithm, he has previously admitted that Twitter was reviewing his account’s analytics.
During a Twitter Spaces audio chat, Musk and some of Twitter’s developers took questions from listeners. When asked about the code that tracked accounts in these four groups, Musk said, “There’s a ton of stupid and embarrassing things being shown by making the code open source.”
Twitter has explained that this metric tracking is being used to ensure that changes to Twitter do not negatively affect any of these four groups. If an algorithm change benefited an entire group of users but negatively impacted the group made up solely of Elon Musk, Twitter would not implement that algorithm change.
Zoë Schiffer of Platformer reported that Twitter actually removed part of the source code that affected the reach of Musk’s and other users’ tweets before releasing the algorithm to the public. And during the Twitter Spaces chat, Twitter explained that the metric tracking code was first developed into the algorithm years ago under the old Twitter regime. However, it was not explained why Musk’s tweets were specifically being tracked, a part of the code that seemingly would’ve been added much more recently.
In response to concerns about grouping accounts into the categories “Democrat” and “Republican,” one of Twitter’s developers explained that this code was just for collecting statistics. And while Musk said that Twitter would remove the portion of the code tracking his tweets, he also shared that the company would make changes to the algorithm based on user feedback every one to two days.
In conclusion, the revelation that Twitter is specifically tracking how Elon Musk’s tweets are performing has sparked controversy and raised questions about the platform’s transparency and fairness. And while Musk and Twitter have promised to make changes based on user feedback, only time will tell if this will be enough to address the concerns of users and observers alike.
