Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm

#211

Post by SequoiaHope » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 7:51 PM UTC

cubefox wrote: post #155

daveguy wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they could pretend to be open. It's the "Open"AI model. Open-washing?

This is a very cynical take. They should be commended for publishing recommendation code at all, which no other major social network does.

Well if they say “we will open source the algorithm” and then what they really open source is a little bit of slightly relevant code that doesn’t allow us to understand the algorithm, then what we can deduce is that they are trying to weasel out of public commitments.

I can’t say for sure if that happened, but if they made a clear promise and then did something else, it’s perfectly reasonable to call that out.

Re: Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm

#212

Post by SauciestGNU » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 7:51 PM UTC

capableweb wrote: post #150

gregw134 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now engineers working on the algo can ensure their launches won't lower Elon's tweet visibility. Looks like those remaining at Twitter have a knack for corporate survival.

Yeah, surely the fan-boys who remain at Twitter are interested in lowering the visibility of Elon, not the opposite.

I read that as being able to make sure they don't lower his engagement with a release

Re: Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm

#213

Post by sabellito » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 7:52 PM UTC

cvhashim04 wrote: post #183

gregw134 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now engineers working on the algo can ensure their launches won't lower Elon's tweet visibility. Looks like those remaining at Twitter have a knack for corporate survival.

When your visa is on the line, you’ll do anything

Engineers who work at twitter can easily find another job in the US.

Re: Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm

#214

Post by japhyr » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 7:52 PM UTC

capableweb wrote: post #150

gregw134 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now engineers working on the algo can ensure their launches won't lower Elon's tweet visibility. Looks like those remaining at Twitter have a knack for corporate survival.

Yeah, surely the fan-boys who remain at Twitter are interested in lowering the visibility of Elon, not the opposite.

I think they meant that Twitter developers can make sure their most recent changes won't get them fired by lowering his visibility.

Re: Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm

#215

Post by sangnoir » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 7:52 PM UTC

lhnz wrote: post #156

tech234a wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes sense; I guess that means Elon is considered a "group" now.

I know there's a joke about this regarding his ego and there's certainly some truth in that, however it's also quite believable that after a deployment he might have noticed the popularity of his tweets going down (since he no doubt checks his reach), so I can kind of understand how he might see "republicans", "democrats" and "celebrities_it_makes_sense_to_check_this_with_my_account_as_i_am_a_very_active_user" as cor…

> it's also quite believable that after a deployment he might have noticed the popularity of his tweets going down

He did notice it and it was treated as a 5 alarm fire, with a Musk cousin sending 2 am slack messages (on a Monday!) to Twitter engineers to urgently fix Elon's reach[1].

1. https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/14/23600358/elon-musk-tweets...

Re: Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm

#216

Post by mochomocha » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 7:52 PM UTC

lhnz wrote: post #188

NERD_ALERT wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need to speculate on this. It sounds like he did actually fire engineers over his tweets getting less engagement than he wanted. https://www.platformer.news/p/elon-musk-fires-a-top-twitter-...

Honestly, if you read behind the lines, it sounds like the employee was intentionally making a joke about it at his expense in front of a bunch of people, and I think a lot of CEOs would take that badly as this is effectively the same thing as calling your boss egocentric. But, we do have a bit of code that measures metrics on his account, so can we find the bit of code that increases the engagement on his account?

> But, we do have a bit of code that measures metrics on his account, so can we find the bit of code that increases the engagement on his account?

There doesn't need to be. When they run AB tests, it's possible that they'd pick the winning cell if it makes the Elon metrics look better.

Even if the algorithm doesn't do anything explicit about boosting him, it can be tweaked through AB testing to favor him.

Re: Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm

#217

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 7:52 PM UTC

hutzlibu wrote: post #148

dawnerd wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is 100% not their working copy.

Well yes, but I am pretty sure, elon envisoned warm welcome by the OS community and help for free and now that is off to a bad start.

[deleted]

Re: Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm

#218

Post by bilekas » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 7:52 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #184

jaywalk wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

\* \* These author ID lists are used purely for metrics collection. We track how often we are \* serving Tweets from these authors and how often their tweets are being impressed by users. \* This helps us validate in our A/B experimentation platform that we do not ship changes \* that negatively impacts one group over others. \* From: https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/blob/7f90d0ca342b92...

Still smells to high heaven to me. Not the Elon part, I don't really care about that. But collecting metrics about "republican" vs "democrat" sounds like a particularly bad set of priorities at work.

This exactly.. But without the models or policies we can only infer, which give plausible deniability.

Can't say I'm shocked overall, but it's strange to see it so 'on the nose'

Re: Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm

#219

Post by Kpourdeilami » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 7:53 PM UTC

tentacleuno wrote: post #160

Kpourdeilami wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm/blob/7f90d0ca342b92... ``` def query_keys(self, language, task=2, size="50"): if task == 2: if language == "ar": self.query_settings["adhoc_v2"]["table"] = "..." elif language == "tr": self.query_settings["adhoc_v2"]["table"] = "..." elif language == "es": self.query_settings["adhoc_v2"]["table"] = f"..." else: self.query_settings["adhoc_v2"]["table"] = "..." return self.query…

Looking through it, the ... seems to be a placeholder for information they'd prefer to be kept private. For example, look in the keywords section in the same file you shared.

You're correct, makes more sense now

Re: Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm

#220

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 7:53 PM UTC

idle_zealot wrote: post #67

BbzzbB wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It removes the extra weight to Twitter blue tweets?

If the property names are to be believed it sets a weight multiplier to 0. So it prevents recommending them entirely.

It sets the default to zero, but apparently can range up to 100. So... what modifies it? (The answer is probably in there somewhere, but I'm sure someone will find it before I do.)