I don’t see the claims from Twitter matching the headline The Guardian is running. Twitter’s internal research is saying that certain tweets are organically more popular and engaging and more likely to be shown, not that the algorithm has an
ideological bias. If you search for the word “bias” in Twitter’s post you’ll not find support for The Guardian’s editorialization. Here’s an important excerpt, which notes that more analysis is needed to understand whether the amplification is unnatural relative to user interactions:
> Algorithmic amplification is problematic if there is preferential treatment as a function of how the algorithm is constructed versus the interactions people have with it. Further root cause analysis is required in order to determine what, if any, changes are required to reduce adverse impacts by our Home timeline algorithm.
This study also leaves out a very important consideration, which is the impact of Twitter’s moderation along political lines. I suspect that’s where the true bias lies and given Twitter’s content policies reflect progressive ideology, it is very likely that bias leans left.
Twitter’s original blog post: https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2021/rml-polit...
> Algorithmic amplification is problematic if there is preferential treatment as a function of how the algorithm is constructed versus the interactions people have with it. Further root cause analysis is required in order to determine what, if any, changes are required to reduce adverse impacts by our Home timeline algorithm.
This study also leaves out a very important consideration, which is the impact of Twitter’s moderation along political lines. I suspect that’s where the true bias lies and given Twitter’s content policies reflect progressive ideology, it is very likely that bias leans left.
Twitter’s original blog post: https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2021/rml-polit...