Twitter to open source its algorithm next week: Elon Musk

Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday said that the social media platform’s algorithm will be made open source and will be improved gradually in the coming months. Musk has been pitching the idea to open source Twitter’s algorithm even before his hostile takeover of the social media platform in October last year.

In a tweet, he said, "Prepare to be disappointed at first when our algorithm is made open source next week, but it will improve rapidly!"

His statement comes as the social media platform in the past few months has been witnessing increasing pressure from other open source platforms such as Mastodon and Tumblr, which are Twitter’s rivals, as per a report. In the wake of Musk’s hostile takeover of Twitter, the number of users skyrocketed in Mastodon, which is a decentralised open-source platform with similar features to that of Twitter, the reports said. 

Open source model is a decentralised software that allows anyone to easily access, inspect or make changes in the platform. If Twitter's algorithm becomes open source, users and lawmakers can easily inspect the mechanism of content recommendation in the social media platform. In the past few months, the mechanism of content recommendation has been a point of contention between lawmakers and several social media platforms such as TikTok and YouTube. 

Earlier this week, the social media platform announced a slew of changes. On Wednesday, Twitter announced users "will get a heads up if a Community Note starts." In a tweet, the social media platform said, "Starting today, you’ll get a heads up if a Community Note starts showing on a Tweet you’ve replied to, Liked or Retweeted. This helps give people extra context that they might otherwise miss."

Besides, the social media platform said that it will limit its message-based two-factor authentication (2FA) to its Blue subscribers beginning March 20. This means that in order to avail the two-factor authentication, users who do not have a Twitter Blue subscription will have to either pay ₹900 or use an authentication app or security key for 2FA.

Twitter also announced a slew of features on its application programming interface (API) including a paywall for its API beginning February 13. This means that the developers will be charged a certain amount for access to their APIs, so that third-party apps can interact with Twitter. This is part of the Twitter Blue subscription.

Twitter Blue subscription was launched in December last year for $8 per month on the website, and $11 per month for iOS users via the Apple app store. The subscription is currently available in 15 countries including India, the United States, United Kingdom, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia.

Ever since his takeover of the social media platform, Musk—who is now looking for a replacement as the CEO—announced a slew of changes such as forming a content moderation council, launching of Twitter Blue subscription and purging spam or bot accounts, amongst others.

Last month, Musk announced the social media platform will be rolling out a new, but slightly expensive subscription model to curtail advertisements on Twitter.