Elon Musk says he wants to improve Twitter by “making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans”
and at some point it should be studied with the perspective of some temporal distance - but the neediest, most ardent, and most passionate censorship crusaders are the tattletale-employees of media corporations like this: https://twitter.com/... Edward Ongweso Jr / @bigblackjacobin : “Extend the light of consciousness” why do they all talk about their companies like hermetic orders?! https://twitter.com/... Zack Kanter / @zackkanter : I just want to be in the room when Elon finds out that the “algorithm” is some forked implementation of jquery on top of a bespoke XML/Esperanto hybrid data lake. Joseph A. Wulfsohn / @josephwulfsohn : Parag Agrawal said Twitter should “not be bound by the First Amendment” and “focus less on thinking about free speech.” That seems like the opposite of being “broadly inclusive” and of what Elon Musk's vision for Twitter is. https://twitter.com/... Sam Sheffer / @samsheffer : i do think we'll get an edit button - sooner rather than later it'll probably allow for one edit and have a “show original tweet” button for transparency yes bad actors can manipulate this system but other platforms have had comment editing for years (w/out revision history) @keemstar : Jack come on. You literally Banned the President of the United States. Be real. https://twitter.com/... Subrahmanyam Kvj / @sub8u : Twitter changes hands from team that's too scared to make any meaningful changes to person with a very US-centric view on how the platform should function. Don't envy Twitter employees in other countries going forward - tough job on hands. https://www.prnewswire.com/... Brittney Cooper / @professorcrunk : “The light of consciousness”? No. https://twitter.com/... @carnage4life : Biggest disconnect I saw with Jack as CEO of Twitter is that he hated the ad business model but never created a replacement. I suspect he & Elon will prefer a paid services model given their other businesses. Also between Apple's ATT & EU laws, it's a good time to pivot from ads https://twitter.com/... @therealhoarse : This guy is the biggest dilettante clown to ever do cave yoga in Burma or whatever he does. https://twitter.com/... @slpng_giants : We have to get to a point where ridiculously wealthy people that speak like this aren't in control of the few ways the world now communicates. https://twitter.com/... @senatorshoshana : jack over here just vibing https://twitter.com/... Frances Haugen / @franceshaugen : Censorship ≠ the solution. 👀many unknowns w/private #twitter I hope @elonmusk leans into non-content based safety solutions. Solutions exist. It's time to build them. Better social media=safety systems that scale, for diverse languages & honor our autonomy/dignity. See also Mediagazer
The Verge
Context & Ripple Effects
The proposal extends Musk’s earlier public-interest case for acquiring Twitter, which had already included algorithm transparency. It combines ranking visibility, bot control, and identity verification into a single agenda for platform trust.
That agenda also puts pressure on Twitter’s record of resisting user-unmasking subpoenas: an all-human authentication goal makes identity policy inseparable from the platform’s privacy and speech posture.
First-order effects
Musk sets open-sourcing, anti-bot enforcement, and human authentication as the priorities against which his stewardship of Twitter would be judged.
Twitter’s ranking systems and account controls become one policy package rather than separate engineering and moderation questions.
Second-order effects
A push to authenticate humans would force Twitter to reconcile bot enforcement with its prior defense of users’ privacy and free-speech rights.
Algorithm disclosure would intensify scrutiny of how distribution decisions connect to enforcement; the later deboosting and demonetization policy shows those levers becoming explicitly linked.
Third-order effects
If transparency, identity, and distribution controls are managed as one stack, trust becomes core platform infrastructure rather than a standalone moderation promise.
The later reading limits imposed over scraping suggest that account and access controls can become central governance tools alongside content policies.
The trend: Social platforms are increasingly treating algorithm transparency, identity assurance, and access controls as interdependent mechanisms for governing trust and abuse.
1 - restore full API access - anyone should be able to write a full client, including their own timeline algorithm (this could require a monthly subscription)
If Twitter is worth buying, much of its value is in the employees who build and manage the service, “The wild card is, what if it becomes a very different company than they thought they were working for?” @kateconger https://www.nytimes.com/...
I'm not really sure how or why it happened — and at some point it should be studied with the perspective of some temporal distance - but the neediest, most ardent, and most passionate censorship crusaders are the tattletale-employees of media corporations like this: https://twitt…
I just want to be in the room when Elon finds out that the “algorithm” is some forked implementation of jquery on top of a bespoke XML/Esperanto hybrid data lake.
Black creativity has always made social media what it is and Twitter is no exception. It's now owned by Elon Musk, someone whose staffers say was so repulsed by the sight of their Black faces, they had to physically hide when he visited the workplace https://www.blackenterprise.c…
Parag Agrawal said Twitter should “not be bound by the First Amendment” and “focus less on thinking about free speech.” That seems like the opposite of being “broadly inclusive” and of what Elon Musk's vision for Twitter is. https://twitter.com/...
i do think we'll get an edit button - sooner rather than later it'll probably allow for one edit and have a “show original tweet” button for transparency yes bad actors can manipulate this system but other platforms have had comment editing for years (w/out revision history)
Twitter changes hands from team that's too scared to make any meaningful changes to person with a very US-centric view on how the platform should function. Don't envy Twitter employees in other countries going forward - tough job on hands. https://www.prnewswire.com/...
If Twitter's algorithm is published, there will be a whole new branch of history investigating escalation trajectories in various conflicts to which Twitter has contributed. War crimes tribunals, too - I hope.
Biggest disconnect I saw with Jack as CEO of Twitter is that he hated the ad business model but never created a replacement. I suspect he & Elon will prefer a paid services model given their other businesses. Also between Apple's ATT & EU laws, it's a good time to pivot from ads …
Fyi, this inadvertently (maybe) reads like @jack @elonmusk @paraga pulled off Ocean's 11 for geeks and I will throw in @btaylor (and adjacent @Benioff) to the crew too. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
I own a Tesla and was super excited about getting “Summon Mode” a couple years back. My son and I took it to a parking lot and watched it lunge wildly at pedestrians until my son begged me never to use it again. And that sums up my feelings about Musk “fixing” Twitter.
We have to get to a point where ridiculously wealthy people that speak like this aren't in control of the few ways the world now communicates. https://twitter.com/...
Censorship ≠ the solution. 👀many unknowns w/private #twitter I hope @elonmusk leans into non-content based safety solutions. Solutions exist. It's time to build them. Better social media=safety systems that scale, for diverse languages & honor our autonomy/dignity.