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Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm

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Re: Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm

#811

Post by JoshCole »

jsnell wrote: post #597
JoshCole wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are millions of lines of code existent. There are thousands added. Your prior for it being Elon's addition should be something like 10,000/1,000,000 or roughly 1/100. The prior that it wasn't Elon's change is going to be something like 99/100. When you add the additional information that Elon wants the code removed, but existing Twitter engineers think it appropriate to keep this actually increases the probabil…

Why is lines of code the appropriate input here? Here's a different computation that is at least as plausible: There are hundreds of millions of users. Let's say 300M. Only a single one is special-cased in this code: the narcisistic CEO who reportedly went ballistic when his engagement metrics went down. The prior that it's a change done in response to his demands is 299999999/300000000. (But of course it was added b…

I think you are right, my estimate is much much too low.

I'll explain my mistake and why I made it.

I think I thought to use the estimate I did because Elon claimed he didn't know. The prior probability of not knowing something in a code base with millions of lines is very high, but contingent on his involvement in the change the prior that he is aware of it is much higher. So I started the estimate attempt with the probability that I thought better predicted the production of evidence claiming he didn't know.

Your point does raise my estimate substantially, but I think it probably raises it less than you would expect. I don't agree with your 1/300M prior, because I'm aware that hot users get special treatment. I've seen Elon's account thrown around in interview-style questions about hot users before and used as an example of a hot account that needs special treatment. This is something I've witnessed, but it wasn't contingent on Twitter being acquired and it happened prior to Twitter being acquired.

I also don't particularly assign high odds to wanting it, based on the evidence that he claimed to not want it implicitly by wanting it removed. I don't think it seems appropriate to get to near certain probability the he wanted it with the evidence being that he stated that he didn't want it. In my view there isn't a compelling reason for him to lie about this. He owns Twitter, so if he wanted them to have his account monitored that would be a reasonable thing well within his authority. If he wanted it, he doesn't need to pretend to not want it in order to appease someone.

It does seem to me that the odds that the change was added in response to someone thinking he wanted it is much higher than 1%.

Re: Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm

#812

Post by dudeinjapan »

panarky wrote: post #512
roughly wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect they're tracking the red team/blue team metrics because of the political shitstorm that's been the GOP's assertions they're being silenced by The Algorithm.

The fallacy of false equivalence systematized in code. Now one side can spew as much disinfo and incitement to violence as it likes, and any algorithm change that prevents this shit from getting amplified will be rejected as bias. BSaaS = Both Sides as a Service

Yeah but despite all that they should still give leftists a platform to tweet.

Re: Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm

#813

Post by kaba0 »

bboygravity wrote: post #29
nebula8804 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Or an alternative view: no matter what he does there will always be haters and there are massive (political) incentives to destroy his public persona. Those incentives also align nicely with those of hedge funds that are short TSLA as well as family offices that are short Tesla (hello Billy boy Gates).

Or, hear me out, maybe he is just a terrible person with some insane level of narcissism who will talk shit about everything without being half competent at that, and recently the consequences of his very own shitty decisions have been catching up to him.

You can be only so stupid to acquire Twitter overpriced and drive it to the ground, there is no need for “political incentives”, when he is quite good at destroying his own persona.

Re: Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm

#814

Post by jurassic »

basisword wrote: post #754
jurassic wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...it is only because that group disproportionately participates in behavior that is bad for the platform. That isn't a problem. That is exactly what Twitter's stance has been all along (in the pre-Elon era) and it IS a problem for the product because people being silenced due to their own bad behavior (example: misgendering transgender people) feel an injustice is being done. The rule-makers get to set the range o…

Am I misunderstanding? Are you suggesting that penalising those who misgender transgender people is unfairly disadvantaging people whose political views are right of centre?

It's not about what I personally believe or think is unfair. It's about what Republicans (broadly speaking) believe. There is massive resentment from people on the right who think the Twitter rules unfairly elevated some political opinions as good/correct/acceptable while treating others as unacceptable.

The handling of trans issues is just one example to illustrate the problem here. People on the left think trans rights are human rights while people on the right think a lot of trans issues should be open for discussion, legislation, persecution, etc. I think if we're being intellectually honest most would acknowledge that as a country we are far from consensus on many of the details here (bathrooms, girls sports, etc), and yet Twitter's rules and enforcement actions behaved as if the leftist view of transgender people is the only valid and permissible view.

The handling of January 6 and the banning of Trump is another example.

These things are Rorschach tests; people apply their biases and reach very different conclusions about what should be done. I don't claim to know the solution, I'm just trying to sketch out the problem with the way things were creating a climate where a big segment of the US felt unwelcome and resentful toward the platform.

This presents a problem for the platform, since you can't afford to alienate large double digit percents of the population if your mandate from shareholders is to grow mDAU by any means necessary. In that context, having some metrics tracking in place to measure the impact of algorithm changes on democrats and republicans to see whether impact is disproportionate is a completely rational thing to do.

Re: Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm

#815

Post by kaba0 »

mort96 wrote: post #788
matesz wrote: post #394

It is really nice to see how bazel is used in the wild. It looks so clean. Why we are not using it for everything?

I wouldn't want to use a build system written in Java for non-Java code. Adding the whole JVM as a dependency just for the build system isn't worth it,

Surely that 5 megabytes will break every computer out there.. While we are at it, why not just strip out libc as well? It’s just bloat, right?

Re: Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm

#816

Post by nailer »

sva_ wrote: post #564
nailer wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not how it works. See the parent.

They said that they use it for metrics, so clearly there must be an "elon impression" metric.

Yes, it’s not making anyone see any extra Elon tweets as your comment alleged.

Re: Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm

#818

Post by nailer »

threeseed wrote: post #603
db48x wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think the code looked like that prior to Elon's purchase? I suspect that there was another name there before. Separately, which of these groups do you think that they use as a control?

> I suspect that there was another name there before Who ? Musk is unique in being obsessed with being liked and relevant. All of the other social CEOs including Porag and Jake have never really cared that much. And none of them participated in contributing content anything close to what Musk does.

Why is Musk obsessed with being liked? There was a hoax last month about the algorithm being tweaked to make everyone view Elon’s tweets which was provably false.

It is very much likely to be the CEO a company wanting to understand his companies product.

Re: Twitter's Recommendation Algorithm

#820

Post by djtango »

nonethewiser wrote: post #672
delecti wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chesterton's Fence. In a sufficiently large system, you should be hesitant to remove things unless you're sure you know why it was added, and all the things that have come to depend on it since. I've definitely been hesitant to remove things I was pretty confident weren't used anymore, just because I didn't want to deal with the repercussions if I was wrong.

I didn’t know there was a name for this. Thanks for sharing. I’ve definitely been bitten by this. You always have to weigh the chance you break something against the upside. If you’re actually fixing a bug, fine. But just refactoring to make something cleaner? Or deleting because it seems like it’s not doing anything, even after doing some research? Think again.

True for many things - doctors are now a lot more hesitant to remove the appendix for example. (it serves as a buffer for your gut flora iirc)
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