Twitter users are being "manipulated" by the site's news feed algorithm, Elon Musk tweeted over the weekend.
"You are being manipulated by the algorithm in ways you don't realize," Musk said, adding it is "very important to fix your Twitter feed" by tapping the star in the top right of the screen to show "latest tweets."
Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey responded to Musk by tweeting that the function "was designed simply to save you time when you are away from app for a while. Pull to refresh goes back to reverse chron [chronological] as well."
Dorsey added that the function "wasn't designed to manipulate. it was designed to catch you up and work off what you engage with," although he did say that it can definitely "have unintended consequences."
Dorsey insisted that this "is why one should be able to choose if they use an algo[rithm] or not, and which one," stating that this is a "simple solution to all this."
Musk later cleared up his original remarks, writing on Twitter that "I'm not suggesting malice in the algorithm, 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. Not to mention potential bugs in the code. Open source is the way to go to solve both trust and efficacy."
Business Insider pointed out that Musk has made the Twitter algorithm a major talking point, as he desires that it be an open source to boost trust in the platform.
Musk has said in recent days that his $44 billion takeover of Twitter was "temporarily on hold," but that he was "still committed to [its] acquisition."
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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