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Following leaks, Twitter has made its content recommendation algorithm completely available to the public – laying bare how the social network works and what sort of posts are most likely to succeed.

Along with a lot of interesting details involving which types of content are best received, how your interactions with others affect you, and how poor grammar may hurt you, the code also includes a number of concerning details that have made human rights groups concerned.

Let’s talk about all the most notable parts below:

Likes Count Most

Likes seem like the easiest type of interaction you can get from other users but don’t underestimate them. The code shows that likes are easily the most important type of engagement compared to retweets or replies.

The system assigns points to each type of interaction, with each point giving a boost to a post’s visibility. In the current system, a single like gives a post 30 points. Retweets are not far behind, giving 20 points. Shockingly, replies are practically meaningless in comparison, giving just a single point for each reply.

This means that all the conversation in the world doesn’t matter if users aren’t also liking your posts.

Pics and Videos Are Important

Less surprisingly, the source code confirms that posts containing visual media are largely preferred over plain text.

Linking Out Is Frowned Upon

This is another one that has been suspected for a while but has been confirmed by the source code.

For the most part, Twitter does not want you to link users off the platform. It makes a simple type of sense. Twitter’s goal is to keep people on the app as long as possible, and each link represents a chance for users to leave the app.

To combat this, the site largely downplays posts containing links unless they are coming from accounts that already have a lot of interaction on their posts.

Twitter Blue Helps

Elon Musk has not been shy about his plans to make Twitter more of a pay-for-play platform through his pet project, Twitter Blue. Since its reveal, one of the touted benefits of the premium subscription is increased visibility, which is backed by the source code.

This is not a guarantee you’ll suddenly get a ton of exposure if you sign up for Twitter Blue, though. Accounts are just given points toward their overall algorithm ranking if they are subscribed.

Poor Spelling Costs You

For a site with the most limited options for editing posts after they go live (only available to Twitter Blue subscribers for 30 minutes after a tweet is posted), Twitter is surprisingly uptight about spelling and grammar. The source code indicates that posts with poor spelling and grammar may be demoted as a form of spam prevention.

The Controversial Stuff

Lastly, we come to the most eyebrow-raising details contained within the source code because of how Twitter appears to be handling international conflicts and vulnerable groups.

Based on the available code, Twitter seems to be limiting the visibility of posts talking about the ongoing war in Ukraine as hate-based content. This is particularly problematic as many human aid groups have relied on social networks like Twitter to drive donations, awareness, and support.

Another hot-button topic that seems to be directly targeted by Twitter’s code are transgender individuals. Users found that several terms relating to transgender people are suppressed on the platform, particularly when sharing links to other sites containing those terms. Meanwhile, activists say that the platform is not limiting pages containing hateful terms.

Musk says part of the decision to make this source code open to the public is the hope to identify problems that can be quickly fixed by the team to improve the recommendation algorithm. As such, the code should be seen as a work in progress. Still, it is worth taking time to familiarize yourself with everything in the recent code if you drive sales for your business through Twitter.

As social networks have grown into the central platforms most people use to find all sorts of information (including trends, news, and everything else), their feed algorithms have likewise grown in influence. They dictate what information you take in, what you buy, and how you see the world.

Due to this and the fact that the inner workings of these algorithms tend to be well-guarded secrets, these feed algorithms also tend to be surrounded with myths and misunderstandings. In attempting to reverse engineer these algorithms to better understand how to get the greatest reach, incorrect assumptions become accepted as fact which is allowed to spread without a clear explanation from the developers behind these feeds.

That’s why LinkedIn’s VP of Engineering, Sabry Tozin, is using a new blog and video series called “Mythbusting The Feed” to set the record straight on how the professional-focused social network surfaces content.

In the first set of videos, Tozin starts out addressing two questions:

“What kind of conversations are welcomed on LinkedIn?”
“What does it mean to be professional when it comes to content on LinkedIn?”

Here’s what he had to say.

What Kind of Conversations Are Preferred By LinkedIn’s Feed Algorithms?

While LinkedIn technically allows for posts about any topic, it is obvious that the feed algorithms prefer content that is authentic and relevant to other users.

Since the platform is aimed at connecting professionals around the world, these discussions tend to be related to issues experienced by leaders and workers, such as the experience of switching to working from home, how you approach your career, or recent news from your business.

As Tovin says:

“We welcome all sorts of conversations on LinkedIn, but primarily we want to have conversations that people care about. Where the things they talk about, and the content they generate, are about things that are authentic to them, and resonate with them, but also make them feel like they’re connected to their communities.”

In the video, he also notes that LinkedIn sees a lot of activity around topics that may not be easy to discuss in person or at the office:

“Another thing we’ve seen is conversations that may be hard to talk about like mental health and wellbeing, other than productivity and how people think about working, but what that truly means to them.
We see LinkedIn as a place to have that conversation, and our technology teams are finding ways to enable that, to keep it safe, and for members to feel like this is a place where they can actually talk about everything that’s authentic to them.”

Does Content on LinkedIn Need To Be Strictly Professional?

As a social network targeted at professionals, there is an assumption that the platform’s algorithms will favor content that is formal, purely related to careers or industries, or strictly “professional”.

Of course, this forgets that LinkedIn is a social network first and foremost. As such, it blurs the line between personal and professional, allowing you to celebrate personal growth which may only be tangentially related to your career.

For example, it is not uncommon for content related to a range of personal milestones such as getting married, reaching a personal goal like weight loss, or overcoming an obstacle that may have been holding you back.

As the video explains:

“Think of LinkedIn as a place to have an authentic conversation and not limit it to one topic or another because so many of those things go hand in hand.”

More To Come

In the coming weeks, Sabry says he will discuss even more about how LinkedIn’s feed algorithms work and common myths about the algorithms including:

How the Algorithm Works and Personalizing The Feed
Content Distribution and How LinkedIn Works To Address Bias

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