{"id":294843,"date":"2026-01-21T00:00:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T00:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/294843\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T00:00:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T00:00:07","slug":"x-open-sources-its-algorithm-while-facing-a-transparency-fine-and-grok-controversies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/294843\/","title":{"rendered":"X open sources its algorithm while facing a transparency fine and Grok controversies"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2023, the website then known as Twitter partially open sourced its algorithm<\/a> for the first time. In those days, Tesla billionaire Elon Musk had only recently acquired the platform, and he claimed to be on a mission to restructure the social media platform to make it more transparent. <\/p>\n

However, the algorithm\u2019s code release was swiftly critiqued for being \u201ctransparency theater<\/a>,\u201d with critics noting that it was \u201cincomplete,\u201d and that it didn\u2019t reveal much about the inner workings of the organization, or why the code worked the way that it did.<\/p>\n

Now the site (rebranded as X) has open sourced its algorithm again, fulfilling a promise made by Musk last week. \u201cWe will make the new \ud835\udd4f algorithm, including all code used to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users, open source in 7 days,\u201d he\u2019d said<\/a>. Musk also promised to provide transparency into the algorithm every four weeks for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n

In a post<\/a> on GitHub on Tuesday, X provided an accessible write-up about its feed-generating code, along with a diagram of how the program works.<\/p>\n

What has been revealed isn\u2019t particularly earth-shattering \u2014 but it does provide a peek behind the algorithmic curtain. The diagram<\/a> shows that, when sifting about for content to feed a particular user, the site\u2019s algorithm considers their engagement history (what posts they\u2019ve clicked on, etc.) and surveys recent in-network posts. It also conducts a machine-learning-based analysis of \u201cout-of-network\u201d posts \u2014 as in, content from accounts that the user doesn\u2019t necessarily follow \u2014 that it believes the user might also find appealing.<\/p>\n

\"\"Image Credits:<\/strong>Screenshot<\/p>\n

The algorithm then filters out certain kinds of posts, including ones that come from blocked accounts or that are associated with muted keywords, as well as content that has been deemed too violent or spam-like. The algorithm then ranks this content based on what it thinks the user will find most appealing. This process considers factors like relevance and content diversity so users don\u2019t just get a bunch of posts that are all alike. The algorithm also considers content according to the likelihood that the user will like it, reply to it, repost it, favorite it, or otherwise engage with it in some way.<\/p>\n

\"\"Image Credits:<\/strong>Screenshot<\/p>\n

This whole system is AI-based, according to X. The GitHub write-up released Tuesday notes that the system \u201crelies entirely\u201d on the company\u2019s \u201cGrok-based transformer\u201d to \u201clearn relevance from user engagement sequences.\u201d In other words, Grok is looking at what you\u2019re clicking and liking and feeding that information into the recommendation system. The write-up also notes that there is no \u201cmanual feature engineering for content relevance,\u201d meaning humans don\u2019t manually adjust how the algorithm determines what\u2019s relevant. It adds that the automation \u201csignificantly reduces the complexity in our data pipelines and serving infrastructure.\u201d <\/p>\n

Techcrunch event<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Why is X revealing all of this now? It\u2019s not totally clear. In the past, Musk has claimed that he wants to make the platform an exemplar of corporate transparency \u2014 a theme that continues to today. In 2023, when the Twitter algorithm was first revealed, Musk said that<\/a> providing \u201ccode transparency\u201d would be \u201cincredibly embarrassing at first\u201d but would ultimately \u201clead to rapid improvement in recommendation quality.\u201d He added: \u201cMost importantly, we hope to earn your trust.\u201d With its first code open sourcing, the platform proclaimed a \u201cnew era of transparency<\/a>\u201d for Twitter.<\/p>\n

Though Musk has talked transparency, certain aspects of the platform have arguably grown less open since Musk took it over. When the tech billionaire bought Twitter in 2022, the site was notably forced to transition from a public company to a private one<\/a> \u2014 an evolution that isn\u2019t typically synonymous with openness. While the site used to release multiple transparency reports a year<\/a>, X didn\u2019t release its first transparency report<\/a> until September of 2024. In December, X was also fined $140 million<\/a> by European Union regulators who claimed that the site had violated \u201ctransparency obligations\u201d under the Digital Services Act (DSA), and argued that the site\u2019s verification check mark system had made it more difficult for users to judge the authenticity of particular accounts.<\/p>\n

X has also been under pressure over the past month due to the ways in which its chatbot, Grok, have been used to create and distribute sexualized content. The California Attorney General\u2019s office and congressional lawmakers<\/a> have both scrutinized the platform in recent weeks, citing claims that Grok has been used to create naked images of women and minors. As a result, some may view this appeal to openness as just more theater<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2023, the website then known as Twitter partially open sourced its algorithm for the first time. In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,289,290,18,1647,31845,5066,19,17,1114,82,879],"class_list":{"0":"post-294843","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-elon-musk","13":"tag-github","14":"tag-grok","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-social-media","18":"tag-technology","19":"tag-x"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115930151186946124","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}