Twitter has released parts of its software for public inspection. The short message service provided the source code for the timeline’s recommendation algorithm on the Github developer platform on Friday. There it can be examined. In addition, external programmers can search for errors or suggest improvements. In the company blog, the US group described the process as a “first step into a new era of transparency”. In a further posting, the processes behind the recommendation mechanism are also explained. “The goal of our open-source efforts is to provide you, our users, with full transparency into how our systems work.”
Twitter, on the other hand, has reportedly withheld code that could compromise the security or privacy of users. In addition, the parts of the program that are responsible for the advertising recommendations are not made public. Furthermore, Github does not contain the data that would be used to train the algorithms. The group, led by Tesla boss Elon Musk, called for cooperation on the Twitter code. “We hope to capitalize on the collective intelligence and expertise of the global community to help us find issues and suggest improvements that will ultimately lead to better Twitter.”
Open source is a software development philosophy in which the source code of programs is made publicly available. Among other things, this should increase trust in the software and make it easier to find errors. The best-known representative of this approach is the Linux operating system, which also forms the basis for Google’s Android mobile operating system. Professionals and hobby programmers all over the world work together on the code. Microsoft, for example, is pursuing a closed-source approach with Windows. The source code is kept strictly under lock and key and only made accessible to the company’s own developers. Microsoft acquired Github for $7.5 billion in 2018.
