Twitter's Open Source Algorithm Is a Red Herring

Last Friday afternoon, Twitter posted the source code of its recommendation algorithm to GitHub. Twitter said it was "open sourcing" its algorithm, something I would typically be in favor of. Recommendation algorithms and open source code are major focuses of my work as a researcher and advocate for corporate accountability in the tech industry. My research has demonstrated why and how companies like YouTube should be more transparent about the inner workings of their recommendation algorithms--and I've run campaigns pressuring them to do so. Mozilla, the nonprofit where I am a senior fellow, famously open-sourced the Netscape browser code and invited a community of developers around the world to contribute to it in 1998, and it has continued to push for an open internet since.