It’s 19 April, 2022. The Web3 cults are growing, NFT enthusiasts are fighting intense bidding wars to see who goes broke the fastest, a sovereign country is being invaded, Trump still hasn’t lost the election, and a sneaky billionaire has pulled the Twitter rug out from under the public’s bottom. Being swept up in the times yourself, it might be difficult to detach yourself from your everyday grind to see what events deserve your attention and why. Good thing you don’t have to, because I’ve done that for you. I took a closer look at what’s currently happening with the social media giant, Twitter. I wanted to find out if the events surrounding Twitter could impact regular developers, tech companies that rely on it, or content creators that are within the tech space, and these are my conclusions so far.
What Happened?
Since the 31st of January, sneaky Elon Musk has been chipping off and stashing twitter stocks in little batches almost every single day. Regardless of why he did so in such a shady manner, as of 4th April, he became the largest shareholder of Twitter with a 9% stake. That automatically granted him a seat on the board. One of his first moves in his newfound role was to initiate a massive hostile take-over that’ll make him 100% owner of Twitter. Classic Elon Musk.
His motivations seem to be purely political and ethical in nature, citing that Twitter’s moderation of hate-speech is somehow a war on free-speech. I’m not inclined to comment on that. The key takeaway is that Musk wants to revise Twitter as a platform to make it more conformed to his definition of free-speech, and that is the driving factor behind his policy changes, which we’re about to get into.
I’ve combed through the tweets and various news outlets to find if there’s anything remotely relevant to developers that make use of Twitter’s APIs, content creators that use it to promote their brands, or business models that rely on it, and I’ve only really found 3 potential policy changes that matter
Why Should It Matter to You?
1.Making Twitter’s Algorithm Public
In a poll that sneaky Elon conducted on his Twitter account, he asked his followers if Twitter’s algorithm should be made public and open source. 82.7% of his followers who voted on the pole said yes, which should fairly express the will of Twitter users in general seeing as how Elon Musks’s account is the 8th most popular account on Twitter coming out at around 81M followers.
Whether making Twitter’s algorithm open source would affect the tech world as much as similar moves done by NaN with the 3D editing software Blender, Twitter with Bootstrap, or Meta (Facebook) with React, is actually very questionable though. First of all, most of the people who agreed to make the algorithm open source wouldn’t be able to understand it in the first place. And second of all, Twitter doesn’t really have a single “algorithm”.
Anyone with programming knowledge would know that an “algorithm” is really just a computational and/or mathematical approach taken to solve a very specific computing problem. They usually deal with the methodology to handle, recognize, classify, and optimize data, not business goals.
The “algorithm” that people want made public is the one that Twitter uses to show content to its users. The only issue is, Twitter does not use a single “algorithm” to make sure content gets to it’s users. It employs a multitude of various heuristics, algorithms, and artificial intelligence to make sure content gets to particular users based on their locations, friends, search history, tags explored, interests, likes, retweets, etc. It would be a herculean read for any single developer, and it wouldn’t really serve a clear purpose that isn’t academic or corporate. If you add to that, the fact that those “algorithms” are really only functional within Twitter’s ecosystem, Twitter would have to expose some implementation details about their platform to make sure readers get the right context.
In my opinion, I would say not a lot of developers would be interested in this reveal at all, but Twitter’s competitors, other tech giants, and venture capitalists would certainly dig out a business model from it. However, if you’re that type of developer, maybe it’ll be like reading a good book.
2. Reducing the number of bots
This one deserves much more concern from the broad spectrum of developers directly. Elon Musk has suggested intensifying procedures that Twitter uses to detect and remove bots. He cited that bots are the biggest problem with Twitter, and that he would employ stricter authentication, verification, and screening of Twitter accounts to determine which ones should be removed.
If you’re a developer that has or relies on Twitter bots to offer some sort of service, this could impact the way you have to write your code. You could also have to modify the way your bot makes use of Twitter to make sure it isn’t flagged.
Potentially this might lead to some code-base rewrites for companies whose businesses are centered around twitter content generation and engagement or for developers who just like making bots in general. You might have to re-factor in a few months, so keep a heads up.
3. Removing ad-based revenue
This one doesn’t affect developers directly, but it does change the ecosystem of twitter as a whole for entrepreneurs and content creators in any industry. That of course includes software and tech. For Twitter to remove ad-based revenue would probably mean the end of sponsored tweets, and that could significantly impact some businesses.
This is a major flag that entrepreneurs and content creators have to address.
Finishing Thoughts?
All in all, this is just my assessment of the situation given what I can see. On top of influencing Twitter developers, content creators, and business owners, I feel like this purchase could prove to be politically shaking as well. What are your thoughts about what might happen if Elon Musk successfully buys Twitter out?
P.S: I'm new at content creation, so criticism is welcome. If you're interested in my coverage, more content on my new blog: https://cassaden.com/blogs/curated.
Top comments (5)
This is well written (linguistically). However the premise is one of a result of smoke and mirrors.
When anyone refers to musk in the manner you have in your article, insinuating that he is some diabolical figure with the intent for nothing but self gain... I immediately discredit the entire goal of the article.
This isn't really dev related. It's politically related, and not served well for this community
Thanks for the feedback. It wasn't my intention to make a political statement. His actions were indeed sneaky though, and I was trying to be humorous about it. He's behind a lot of controversy which is the point I was trying to get across. I will try to modify what I write to be more appropriate for this community in the future though. Thanks for that tip.
Calling him sneaky is not unfair or political ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Everything you list sounds good to me.
One algorithm or a thousand algorithms, corporate tech stacks being open source or at least public source is a good thing. If a company can't compete unless their tech stack is hidden, then, oh well, guess they don't add enough actual value as a company to justify being in business.
The less bots the better. If bot makers don't like the changes, then they can go make their own software that doesn't require someone else's system to operate. No website, system, or developer has any responsibility to bot makers, especially since so many bots are detrimental to whatever system they are attached to.
The less ads the better. The ad-based revenue model is outdated and long past the point where it should have died. Any business still clinging to that model is doing a disservice to themselves and the internet community as a whole. This goes doubly so for those that use things like sponsored tweets and sponsored search results and any other sponsored thing that basically equates to buying your way to the front of a line instead of earning your spot.
Your points all seem to revolve around the idea that twitter owes something to the parasitic industries that have grown up around it. They don't. Their only responsibility is to themselves, their users, and the good of the internet as a whole. These changes would well serve all three.
I agree with others that this is not dev related. Your opinion is respected, but dev is better off without politics.