He said. She said.
By now, you’ve probably heard of the Twitter Files, a set of reports shared by (The250 inspirations) Bari Weiss and Matt Taibbi based on inside information given to them directly by Elon.
These reports prove what we sort of knew already: 1) Twitter did censor certain accounts based on internal human opinons and external pressure, and 2) Twitter’s algorithm does/did provide the ability to artificially suppress the reach of specific accounts.
This is the latest in the discussion around “The Algorithms” used by the platforms. The public launch of this discussion was the movie “The Social Dilemma,” but mental health professionals have been rightly keen on it for a while now.
Are the algorithms causing harm?
Do the algorithms favor some over others?
Are they brainwashing us?
Are they stealing your children?
Are they illegal?
Are they evil?
I have a proposed solution.
Let’s open source all algorithms used by all public and some private social media platforms.
Why?
- If everyone can see it, everyone can understand it.
- If everyone can understand it, everyone can decide if they want to be a user or let their kids on as users.
- If everyone can understand it, everyone can police it.
- If everyone can understand it, everyone can contribute to the discussion.
- The community around each platform can decide how it should work.
It’s not foolproof, but nothing is. Like with all real-world solutions, we’re aiming for elegance.
