Tag: reveal
What did Twitter’s ‘open source’ algorithm actually reveal? Not a lot.
When Elon Musk first proposed taking over Twitter, one the first changes he claimed he’d make would be “open-sourcing” Twitter’s algorithm. Last week, Twitter finally followed through on that promise, publishing the underlying code for the site’s “For You” recommendations on GitHub.
Quickly, Twitter sleuths began sifting through the code to see what they could dig up. It didn’t take long for one eyebrow-raising finding: that Musk’s tweets have their own category (along with Democrats, Republicans and “power users”). Twitter engineers hastily explained that this was for “stat tracking purposes,” which has since been confirmed by other analyses. And though Twitter removed that section of code from GitHub within hours of its publishing, it’s still fueled speculation that Twitter’s engineers pay special attention to their boss’ engagement and have taken steps to artificially boost his tweets.
But there have been few other major revelations about the contents of the code or how Twitter’s algorithm works since. And anyone hoping this public code would produce new insights into the inner workings of Twitter will likely be disappointed. That’s because the code Twitter released omitted important details about how “the algorithm” actually works, according to engineers who have studied it.
The code Twitter shared was a “highly redacted” version of Twitter’s algorithm, according to Sol Messing, associate professor at NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics and former Twitter employee. For one, it didn’t include every system that plays a role in Twitter’s recommendations.
Twitter said it was withholding code dealing with ads, as well as trust and safety systems in an effort to prevent bad actors from gaming it. The company also opted to withhold the underlying models used to train its algorithm, explaining in a blog post last week that this was to “to ensure that user safety and privacy would be protected.” That decision is even more consequential, according to Messing. “The model that drives the most important part of the algorithm has not been open-sourced,” he tells me. “So the most important part of the algorithm is still inscrutable.”
Musk’s original motivation to make the algorithm open source seemed to stem from his belief that Twitter had used the algorithm to suppress free speech. “One of the things that I believe Twitter should do is open source the algorithm and make any changes to people’s tweets — if they’re emphasized or de-emphasized —that action should be made apparent,” Musk said last April in an appearance at TED shortly after he confirmed his takeover bid. “So anyone can see that action has been taken, so there’s no sort of behind-the-scenes manipulation, either algorithmically or manually.”
But none of the code Twitter released tells us much about potential bias or the kind of “behind-the-scenes manipulation” Musk said he wanted to reveal. “It has the flavor of transparency,” Messing says. “But it doesn’t really give insight into what the algorithm is doing. It doesn’t really give insight into why someone’s tweets may be down-ranked and why others might be up-ranked.”
Messing also points out that Twitter’s recent API changes have essentially cut off the vast majority of researchers from accessing a meaningful amount of Twitter data. Without proper API access, researchers are unable to conduct their own audits, which would be able to provide new details about how the algorithm works. “So at the same time Twitter is releasing this code, it’s made it incredibly difficult for research to audit this code,” he wrote in his own analysis.
Alex Hanna, director of research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) also raised the importance of audits when we talked last year, shortly after Musk first discussed plans to “open source” Twitter’s algorithm. Like Messing, she was skeptical that simply releasing code on GitHub would meaningfully increase transparency into how Twitter works.
“If you’re actually interested in public oversight on something like a Twitter algorithm, then you would actually need multiple methods for oversight to happen” Hanna said.
There is one aspect of Twitter’s algorithm that the GitHub code does shed some new light on, though. Messing points to a file unearthed by data scientist Jeff Allen, which reveals a kind of “formula” for how different types of engagement are given priority by the algorithm. “If we take that at face value, a fav (twitter like) is worth half a retweet,” Messing writes. “A reply is worth 27 retweets, and a reply with a response from a tweet’s author is worth a whopping 75 retweets.”
While that’s somewhat revealing, it’s, once again, an incomplete picture of what’s actually happening. “It doesn’t mean that much without the actual data,” Messing says. “And Musk just made data so insanely expensive for academics to get. If they want to actually study this now, you basically have to get a giant, massive grants — half a million dollars a year — to get a meaningful amount of data to study what’s happening.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/what-did-twitters-open-source-algorithm-actually-reveal-not-a-lot-194652809.html?src=rss
Dredge’s rescue dog is actually the spooky fishing sim’s most supreme being, devs reveal
Spooky fishing game Dredge is overflowing with underwater eldritch horrors, ghoulish critters, and mutant fishies – like, the Blinky-the-fish kind. Based on that description, you’d expect some three-headed sea beast, incomprehensibly twisted and glowing with an otherworldly light, to be the game’s most supreme being. Nope. That title goes to the dog you rescue in one of the game’s side missions, the developers have revealed.
Open Channel: Who’d Be the MCU’s Silliest (or Dumbest) Skrull Reveal?
Earlier in the week, Marvel finally pulled back the curtain on Secret Invasion, one of the many Disney+ shows they’ve still got in the pipeline. Based on a 2008 comic book event from Brian Michael Bendis and Lenil Francis Yu, the series will see a returning Nick Fury discover that the Skrulls from Captain Marvel have…
Space Scientists Reveal Brightest Gamma Explosion Ever
RockDoctor (Slashdot reader #15,477) writes: A recent paper on ArXiv describes a Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) whose light arrived late last year as one of the strongest ever observed. GRB 221009A was detected on October 9 last year (yes, that number is a date), so 5 and a bit months from event to papers published is remarkably quick, and I anticipate that there will be a lot more papers on it in the future. Stand-out points are :
– it lasted for more than ten hours after detection (a space x-ray telescope had time to orbit out of the Earth’s shadow and observe it)
– it could (briefly) be observed by amateur astronomers.
– it is also one of the closest gamma-ray bursts seen and is among the most energetic and luminous bursts.
It’s redshift is given as z= 0.151, which Wikipedia translates as occurring 1.9 billion years ago, at a distance of 2.4 billion light-years from Earth.
Observations have been made of the burst in radio telescopes (many sites, continuing), optical (1 site ; analysis of HST imaging is still in work), ultraviolet (1 space telescope), x-ray (2 space telescopes) and gamma ray (1 sapce telescope) — over a range of 1,000,000,000,000,000-fold (10^15) in wavelength. It’s brightness is such that radio observatories are expected to continue to detect it for “years to come”.
The model of the source is of several (3~10) Earth-masses of material ejected from (whatever, probably a compact body (neutron star or black dwarf) merger) and impacting the interstellar medium at relativistic speeds (Lorentz factor 9, velocity >99.2% of c). The absolute brightness of the burst is high (about 10^43 J) and it is made to seem brighter by being close, and also by the energy being emitted in a narrow jet (“beamed”), which we happen to be near the axis of.
General news sites are starting to notice the reports, including the hilarious acronym of “BOAT — Brightest Of All Time”. Obviously, with observations having only occurred for about 50 years. we’re likely to see something else as bright within the next 50 years.
The brightness of the x-rays from this GRB is such that the x-rays scattered from dust in our galaxy creates halos around the source — which are bright enough to see, and to tell us things about the dust in our galaxy (which is generally very hard to see). Those images are more photogenic than the normal imagery for GRBs — which is nothing — so you’ll see them a lot.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
NASA and Boeing reveal new date for first crewed Starliner flight
More than 1,000 sex offenders including child rapists escape justice ‘just by saying sorry’, shocking figures reveal
SHOCKING figures reveal that at least 1,000 sex offenders avoided getting a criminal record over the past two years due to apologising to their victims.
Cops handed out “community resolutions” in 1,064 such cases in 2021 and 2022, several of those involved child rape.
The use of out-of-court sanctions for sexual assault have doubled in just 12 months (stock image)[/caption]
Following the murder of Sarah Everard by Met Police officer Wayne Couzens, promises were made to take violence against women and girls seriously but the use of out-of-court sanctions for sexual assault have doubled in just 12 months.
Home Office figures show the number of times the penalty was used in all sexual offences increased by 53 per cent, the Daily Mail reports.
A community resolution, which involves an offender admitting responsibility, is meant to be used by police for low-level crimes.
This could mean an agreement to pay compensation, a rehabilitation activity or a “restorative justice” meeting involving the victim and offender for an apology.
The figures show the sanction was used to settle 643 sex crimes, which included rapes, sexual assaults, grooming and flashing offences, in the 12 months to March 2022, a rise of 53 per cent from the 421 dealt with in the year before.
The number of times it was used to resolve sexual assault cases by the police in this way has doubled from 178 in 2021 to 371 in 2022.
Lincolnshire Police handed out the penalty in four child rape cases last year, one of which involved a girl under 13.
The sanction was used after two rapes of girls under 13 by officers in Nottinghamshire.
Police in Norfolk also used it in the case of the rape of a young boy in 2020.
Some of the sexual offences could have occurred between consenting underage children where, while the incident is recorded as a crime, cops believe it would be too severe to take the teenager to court for their punishment.
The figures, though, also reveal that community resolutions are being handed out for adult offences, including sexual exploitation of a child.
Police bosses say the penalty is usually used in relation to sexual offences only if the victim consents for the crime to be handled that way.
However, the chief executive of Rape Crisis England and Wales Jayne Bulter said: “We do not believe that restorative justice or community resolutions are appropriate remedies for sex offences, or other forms of violence against women and girls.
“Justice solutions such as these minimise the severity of sexual violence and its impact on survivors and fail to acknowledge the inherent power dynamics at play in these types of crimes.”
She added: “It’s important to understand that even so-called ‘low-level’ forms of sexual violence can be extremely traumatising.
“Whilst perpetrators are being given second chances, victims and survivors are left to deal with the impacts of their experiences.”
Commander Alison Heydari of the National Police Chiefs’ Council though said community resolutions were “typically applied where schoolchildren share inappropriate images or in cases of sex between underage children”.
She added: “We have made it clear that out-of-court disposals are not to be used in serious cases.
“Officers take into consideration all circumstances of a case, with victims’ wishes at the centre of our decision-making.
“Community resolutions and other out-of-court disposals are only used in a very small number of sexual offence cases.”
The recent report into Scotland Yard which was overseen by Baroness Casey painted a disturbing picture of the force and how it deals with sexual offences.
Rape cases are being dropped because samples are kept in “over-stuffed dilapidated or broken fridges and freezers”.
One officer told the review that rape detection rates were so low “you may as well say it is legal in London”.
Couzens exposed himself to two frightened attendants at a McDonald’s drive-through in Kent, just three days before he snatched Sarah from a South London street in March 2021.
Scotland Yard were given a description of him, his car registration number and bank card details but cops failed to investigate until he was arrested for the abduction and murder of Sarah.
A woman flashed by Couzens said: “If he had been held accountable when we had reported the crime, we could have saved Sarah.”
Couzens is serving a whole life sentence for the murder of Sarah.
Sarah Everard was snatched off a London street and murdered by Wayne Couzens[/caption]
CS:GO hits a new all-time concurrent player count following Counter-Strike 2 reveal
Counter-Strike 2 was officially revealed just this week, and with that CS:GO has recently broken a record for highest number of concurrent players.
CS:GO might be more than a decade old, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still performing incredibly well. As spotted by Eurogamer, heading over to SteamDB will tell you that the team-based shooter has hit a massive new player peak of 1.5 million (or 1,519,457 to be specific) this weekend. That’s 1.5 million players concurrently, to be clear, as in that many people all playing the shooter at one time, certainly impressive for such an old title. This new record also makes it the game with the second-biggest concurrent player count ever, behind PUBG Battlegruonds’ own record of 3.2 million – a bit of a difference.
This record is just the newest one this year, as it actually achieved a record of 1.4 million players just a couple of weeks ago. It wouldn’t be entirely unsurprising that the announcement of Counter-Strike 2 played a role in encouraging so many players to jump into the game at once.
Counter-Strike 2 reveal sends CSGO Steam count soaring
The Counter-Strike 2 release date is officially coming, as Valve launches the CS2 limited test, and brings its new FPS game to Source 2. With new weapons, skins, mechanics, and maps coming to the Counter-Strike sequel, CSGO nevertheless continues to thrive – in fact, the Counter-Strike 2 announcement has sent the iconic shooter to new heights on Steam.
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