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Source code for the X recommendation algorithm

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Re: Source code for the X recommendation algorithm

#111

Post by mac-attack »

gyanchawdhary wrote: post #70
jezzamon wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's the first time I've seen someone positive about that change. My experience has been by showing blue tick users above others, the experience has become a lot more biased because it's only a certain type of person that pays for Twitter

Isn’t that a good thing that you have already created a mental filter about people who pay for it as being of a “certain type” .. the problem with ticks being bestowed upon some journalists is that they become the brokers/influencers by the virtue of simply working for a newspaper .. that power is vaporised now .. tbh the real question is why didn’t twitter pre musk implement community notes .. I mean it’s not such a…

In the same way that someone speaking on behalf of the White House is held to a standard whenever they speak, the same applies to journalists that are representing a newspaper.

Making everyone 'equal' is a political heuristic that IMO presupposes that journalists can't be trusted and are as useful as a random person paying $20/mo.

Re: Source code for the X recommendation algorithm

#113

Post by archagon »

gyanchawdhary wrote: post #62
snapcaster wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? I've never been a twitter user

Post Musk Twitter is amazing. It lets you see how stories, opinions that you support or don’t are attacked from all sides and Community noted / @grok fact checked … a lot of UX changes too .. pre Musk, the moderation / banning was biased and arbitrary (who is watching the watchers?) .. my personal fav was to see the special tick removed from journalists ..

“Fact checks,” sure. Grok is finely tuned to its master’s demands and politics: https://archive.ph/G0Y4i

Re: Source code for the X recommendation algorithm

#114

Post by nextaccountic »

barbazoo wrote: post #49
Scene_Cast2 wrote: post #7

Just like with their last release, they only released the architecture and not the weights. It may be useful for analyzing the system if you're a competitor (but from my last dive into it, it seemed like a strict subset of fancier, industry-leading rec systems), or perhaps getting into rec / retrieval systems as a newcomer. However, this gives roughly zero insight into how Twitter's feed behaves.

Not only no weights. Not sure what people's expectations are but a lot of the time this isn't even valid code with all the redaction they did [1]. I'm confused as to who this is for, this surely isn't the repo they're working on, is it? [1] https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/blob/main/trust_and...

Are you talking about this?

    wandb_key = ...
    wandb.login(...)
It's rather weird that they would add keys to the source code like this, rather than reading from the environment or some secrets service. Rather than redacting the source, they should refactor to remove the keys from the source

Re: Source code for the X recommendation algorithm

#115

Post by Levitating »

barbazoo wrote: post #49
Scene_Cast2 wrote: post #7

Just like with their last release, they only released the architecture and not the weights. It may be useful for analyzing the system if you're a competitor (but from my last dive into it, it seemed like a strict subset of fancier, industry-leading rec systems), or perhaps getting into rec / retrieval systems as a newcomer. However, this gives roughly zero insight into how Twitter's feed behaves.

Not only no weights. Not sure what people's expectations are but a lot of the time this isn't even valid code with all the redaction they did [1]. I'm confused as to who this is for, this surely isn't the repo they're working on, is it? [1] https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/blob/main/trust_and...

what is your footnote referring to exactly?

Re: Source code for the X recommendation algorithm

#116

Post by archagon »

mrguyorama wrote: post #80
jsheard wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They seem to have dialed the overt Elon boosting down now but it's still conspicuously aligned with his priorities. I just made a fresh burner account to see what the algorithm is primed to push by default nowadays, and about 80% of the feed is anti-immigration ragebait.

I think that's just an accurate and mostly genuine indicator of who is left on twitter nowadays. The people left on twitter earnestly believe that it is better now that you can shout racial slurs at people, buy your way to the top of any chain, get literally paid for ragebait, and genuinely think this repo is meaningful. It's a massive self selection bias.

Musk is actively pushing white nationalism these days, so maybe he adjusted the algorithm in line with his political priorities: https://bsky.app/profile/harikunzru.bsky.social/post/3lxrqzm...

Re: Source code for the X recommendation algorithm

#117

Post by barbazoo »

nextaccountic wrote: post #114
barbazoo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only no weights. Not sure what people's expectations are but a lot of the time this isn't even valid code with all the redaction they did [1]. I'm confused as to who this is for, this surely isn't the repo they're working on, is it? [1] https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/blob/main/trust_and...

Are you talking about this? wandb_key = ... wandb.login(...) It's rather weird that they would add keys to the source code like this, rather than reading from the environment or some secrets service. Rather than redacting the source, they should refactor to remove the keys from the source

One example, that's right. Another one:

    train_query = f"""
    SELECT 
      {{feature_names}},
      {",".join(labels)},
    ...
    """
and right at the top:

    cat_names = [
    ...
    ]

Re: Source code for the X recommendation algorithm

#118

Post by recursivecaveat »

swaptr wrote: post #66

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but why does Bluesky feel so much faster to load and interact with compared to X? On the surface, both have similar interfaces and equally rich content, yet Bluesky consistently feels snappier and more responsive, even though it’s the newer platform.

Newer is generally faster, hasn't had time to accumulate cludges and dead ends from years of evolution. The bigger factor though I would imagine is not having 100 tons of analytics tracking everything.

Re: Source code for the X recommendation algorithm

#119

Post by thevillagechief »

mac-attack wrote: post #111
gyanchawdhary wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that a good thing that you have already created a mental filter about people who pay for it as being of a “certain type” .. the problem with ticks being bestowed upon some journalists is that they become the brokers/influencers by the virtue of simply working for a newspaper .. that power is vaporised now .. tbh the real question is why didn’t twitter pre musk implement community notes .. I mean it’s not such a…

In the same way that someone speaking on behalf of the White House is held to a standard whenever they speak, the same applies to journalists that are representing a newspaper. Making everyone 'equal' is a political heuristic that IMO presupposes that journalists can't be trusted and are as useful as a random person paying $20/mo.

I'm going to go ahead and say that the last 5 years did in fact show that journalists cannot be trusted. I will agree that random persons paying $20 obliterates what was already an embarrassingly low bar. Really, opening it up just expanded the pool of what was already just influencers/activists. And why did celebrities have the bluecheck? It's probably more useful as a verification mechanism.

Re: Source code for the X recommendation algorithm

#120

Post by sanktanglia »

next_xibalba wrote: post #96
jezzamon wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's the first time I've seen someone positive about that change. My experience has been by showing blue tick users above others, the experience has become a lot more biased because it's only a certain type of person that pays for Twitter

Twitter/X user here. I agree with GP, it’s better than it was pre-Elon. The For You feed definitely seems less biased, more interesting, and fewer flame wars. I also think the exodus of Bluesky-ers has helped that (for which Elon gets partial credit). Yes, they do seem to have been backfilled by their right-side mirror images, but those people don’t seem to get amplified to the degree their predecessors were.

You are really going to try and say right wingers aren't amplified on twitter? I literally have an account that just follows gaming accounts and I was having to block people throwing out slurs daily
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