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twitter/the-algorithm

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Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#311

Post by mhh__ »

donatj wrote: post #295
mhh__ wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it's an algorithm, but as software engineers we shouldn't pander to people who actually think there is a small flow chart dictating what happens in your search results. It's idiotic or dishonest.

I mean I'm sure Google has somewhere a UML chart of the entire process of ordering results. Your insistence otherwise is disingenuous at best, either that or you've never actually worked on any sort of major software, at least with any level of reliability/dependability.

Sure they have a chart but it's not "if !idpol -> make woke instead".

The level of discourse I'm trying to convey like what we saw in the Zuck/Pichai hearings in Congress. No understanding of the domain at all.

You or I know how software actually works, your average politician or man on the street does not.

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#312

Post by stjohnswarts »

marcinzm wrote: post #107
abduhl wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, irrelevant, and the code somewhere is readable. Take an example like gravity: is there an algorithm for how gravity acts even though it varies per each molecule based on a kajillion other molecules? Of course there is.

If I have your DNA can I recreate a perfect copy of you as you are now including your mind? It is after all the code you were made with.

No you can't, you can only make a twin, but the mind is shaped by experience also and not just genetics. As is the body.

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#313

Post by mellosouls »

mellosouls wrote: post #304
sjtindell wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mellosouls posted a link to a toxic source, and the article doesn’t even have anything in it except empty speculation based on nonsense. Brutal. Either the psyops have reached HN or the level of intellectual honesty about these topics is trash. Or both.

I lifted the source indirectly from Google's own results (it was linked to from the Mail online), I have no idea of the general toxicity or otherwise of the website itself.

Update: here's a Twitter thread linked from Google's Tweet denying any bias in the incident. Make of it what you will.

https://twitter.com/CharlieNash/status/1285612797028700160

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#314

Post by somishere »

mrintellectual wrote: post #15

This seems to be a practical joke by a Twitter engineer as opposed to an actual release.

Could you take it any other way? I mean obviously you could, because most here appear to be taking 'the-algorithm' very seriously .. but, seriously? It's funny. No joke.

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#315

Post by Sirened »

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #247
mhh__ wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it doesn't make sense. I think it's just a dog whistle to the people who believe google have a guy in a room somewhere turning the "conservative search results" lever down a notch during elections.

A comparison I did from four months ago across google, ddg, yandex, and search.brave, searching for "are conservatives being silenced by big tech" https://i.imgur.com/MVlshAT.png You don't have to be conservative to see there's a pretty significant bias, just in the headlines. I'm a Pacific Green and I can still see it.

I think HN, as a largely technical audience, should see the clear problem with that query. Of course search engines certain results when you use terms like "big tech". It's a term that is largely used by conservative groups in criticism of the tech industry and for little else, and so the bias there is hardly surprising.

Like, say I drum up a conspiracy about how the government is putting Glupkleins in the water. Since it's not a real word, the only results that'll show up will be the conspiracy nonsense that I myself am peddling. People who "do their own research" on Glupkleins by punching it into a search engine will come away with the impression that the entire community is unified on whatever stance I want purely because nobody else knows or cares enough about it enough to write their own articles debunking it.

This is the same thing here, just at a murkier scale. Nobody uses the term big tech except in this context, and so using that term to find something which disproves the context around the term is a losing battle

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#316

Post by stjohnswarts »

jvanderbot wrote: post #90
captainmuon wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well sure there is "ORDER BY" something , and there are batch jobs to calculate this something from different variables. Maybe it is partially a ML black box, but I'm pretty sure they are not flying completely blind. There's got to be an internal Wiki or some PPTs where they list what goes into the mix. Number of likes, retweets. Attached media, hashtags, trending or not. Do they do sentiment analysis and use positiv…

Maybe not. It could all be event-driven, distributed, and just pulling off various prioritized queues.

that's still an algorithm

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#317

Post by stjohnswarts »

krapp wrote: post #58
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the end, it's still code that is being executed, which can be called "an algorithm". Algorithms are under no obligation to be simple or only include "one algorithm".

So then "open sourcing the algorithm" likely means opens sourcing the entire Twitter codebase?

do we know? has any angy ex-twitter engineer revealed the secret sauce to the world?

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#318

Post by KennyBlanken »

memish wrote: post #265
mcphage wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which side is on a book banning tear again?

Both! The difference is in what they target. "On the right, banning books means trying to prevent their kids from reading them. But on the left it often means trying to prevent anyone from reading them." https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1515563419386191880

The example he cites is from a tweet made by a guild of writers for the Oxford University Press.

> We, the members of the OUP USA Guild, are calling upon our colleagues and authors to take a stand against the upcoming publication of “Gender-Critical Feminism”. Sign the petition below (OUP employees and authors only).

Yeah, that's not a "ban", and "gender critical feminism" = TERFs. Ie, "people who think trans women are faking it so they can rape women and children in bathrooms or 'cheat' 'the system'"

Remind me which side thinks businesses have a constitutional right to refuse to serve people if it violates their "beliefs"...yet finds it unacceptable that unionized workers are objecting to publishing of research on a subject?

Also, remind me which side is boycotting a major entertainment company...because said company's CEO voiced displeasure...at a bill that bans any language referencing non-straight gender orientations?

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#319

Post by rootusrootus »

owaislone wrote: post #134
shrimpx wrote: post #82

I don't understand the concept of open-sourcing "the algorithm". First of all, "the algorithm" is probably hundreds of thousands of lines of code, including all the tedious boilerplate like cache policies and multi-AZ logic. And second of all, doesn't the algorithm include machine learning components, which are trained on terabytes of data? That data will likely be impossible to open source. And open sourcing the neu…

Open sourcing is in this is not about the implementation or the CS algorithm. It is more about transparency. I think the idea is that the public should know how tweets are ranked, why tweets show up in timelines and which timelines, what makes tweets popular etc. Imagine Google publishing a document detailing how their system ranks pages aka publishes internal SEO rules officially. I don't know if it is a good idea o…

> if they don't do it already

That's an interesting point. A practical description of the algorithm from the perspective of someone trying to game it may be more useful than anything Twitter or Google would release.

Re: twitter/the-algorithm

#320

Post by jdrc »

themodelplumber wrote: post #221
jdrc wrote: post #33

I know the algorithm i use, it ends with ORDER BY date DESC.

Nice for some things. Absolute death for discovery in a lot of cases though. Either trim your follows down dramatically, or miss some incredible stuff...

there is nothing to discover anymore. everyone is retweeting the same stories. and the best bet at discovering is via soomeone you follow
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