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- Elon Musk offered $1 million to help locate the source of Twitter "botnets."
- One user discovered a loop in Twitter's algorithm that could cause accounts to be blocked.
- One claimed that botnets controlled several accounts and blocked other accounts in an attempt to suppress them.
After Twitter opened-sourced some of its algorithms on Friday, Elon Musk offered a $1 million bounty to anyone who could identify the source of botnets purportedly targeting reputation scores.
Twitter published coding information showing how it recommends tweets to its For You followers.
Steven Tey shared his analysis in a Twitter thread and concluded that Twitter Blue were boosted by the algorithm.
–Steven Tey (@steventey) March 31, 2023
He said that the algorithm could create "negative feedback loops", which would lower a user's reputation score. A user's score can be affected by being blocked, muted, or receiving spam and abuse reports.
Quote-tweeting this thread, user el gato Malo claimed that this was how "botnets” were able to harm the reach of some accounts.
According to Cloudflare, a botnet is a network of computers infected by malware that are controlled by one actor.
According to the user, botnets could take control of multiple accounts and suppress certain accounts through mass blocking, unfollowing, reporting, and even total blockage.
"Who are these botnets?" Musk, the CEO of Twitter, responded that a million dollars would be paid if they were convicted.
Musk was suggested by a user that the reporting, blocking, and muting of verified accounts should all count towards a "reputation" score.
Twitter's open source algorithm has some fascinating quirks.
Jane Wong, a blogger, pointed out that Twitter's algorithm labels Musk tweets.
Wong also reported that the company appears to have labeled major figures such as Jack Dorsey and Katy Perry, Stephen Curry, Barack Obama, and Stephen Curry "testing accounts".
Musk is looking into ways to increase the amplification tweets from verified accounts in an effort to increase Twitter Blue subscriptions and revenue. Musk plans to only allow tweets from verified accounts, and only those users who follow him on the For You feed.
According to Twitter, "Legacy verified account", those who were verified by Twitter prior to Musk's takeover largely on the basis noteworthiness, will lose their verification marks starting this weekend.
Celebrities have spoken out against the payment of checkmarks. This includes news outlets like The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times – and Insider.
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By: rhogg@insider.com (Ryan Hogg)
Title: Elon Musk appears to offer $1 million bounty to ‘convict’ those responsible for Twitter ‘botnets’
Sourced From: www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-offers-million-bounty-convict-twitter-botnets-2023-4
Published Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2023 12:15:00 +0000
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