Elon Musk Encourages Twitter Users to Go Chronological

pcmag.com:

Elon Musk has encouraged Twitter users to switch to the reverse chronological feed so they don't have to worry about the algorithm, which he's criticized in the past, used by its default feed.

Musk isn't the only Twitter user to express concern about the service's default feed. The inscrutable algorithms that determine what tweets should be shown to a user can—intentionally or not—make it harder for those users to see the stuff being shared by the people they follow.

"I’m not suggesting malice in the algorithm," Musk says(Opens in a new window) in a followup tweet, "but rather that it’s trying to guess what you might want to read and, in doing so, inadvertently manipulate/amplify your viewpoints without you realizing this is happening."

Musk also cites(Opens in a new window) the possibility of bugs in Twitter's algorithms leading to unintended problems that would be hard for anyone to notice because the code isn't freely available. His solution, which he's proposed before, is to make the algorithms Twitter relies upon open source.

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has defended Twitter's algorithmic feed:

Regardless of Twitter's intentions, there's no denying that many of the service's users prefer the reverse chronological feed over the algorithmic one, even if it means they have to scroll more. At least the company hasn't removed the reverse chronological feed from its platform entirely.

So far as Musk's argument that open-sourcing Twitter's algorithms will improve the default feed, well, that remains to be seen. Making something open source isn't a magic bullet—especially if contributions and criticisms from outside sources aren't valued highly enough by the developers.

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