What if you could check whether your account or post is being negatively impacted on X by the platform’s ranking system? Well, X is now setting a new standard for transparency by open-sourcing the For You timeline.
Open-Sourcing the For You timeline
X is open-sourcing the code that affects a post’s visibility in the For You timeline and releasing a new tool that shows people labels applied to their account or posts that might limit visibility.
How does it work?
- X is releasing the code that determines how posts are ranked and filtered in the For You timeline, including the content labels that can impact post visibility. This builds on X’s previous open-source work, adding model configuration, filter and core ranking system details.
- The code is paired with post-level and account-level label transparency. This will allow people to see whether their posts or account have visibility-limiting labels.
- People will be able to check for themselves via a new “Under the Hood” page- if they’ve posted 10+ times in the prior month, they will be able to see the labels applied to their account and posts in that month, and download the data.
- The company has designed the system to facilitate ongoing updates as the algorithm evolves.
The “Under the Hood” page is rolling out as a pilot, and the company plans to shape and expand its availability based on feedback from the public. Initially, it will be available to a randomised test group of eligible accounts that are at least one year old.
X has also invited third-party recommender system experts to preview and pressure-test this code release in advance so it’s as clear and useful as possible to the public.
However, it is said that a few systems are not included in this release, like those that use Grok to predict whether a post could be violating a rule. This is meant to protect X from bad actors who could use this information to work around the company’s rules to flood the network with spam.
The company is making the source code available on GitHub.
