10 ms·
... Metrics tracked in AB test. So even if it's not explicitly encoded in the algo (or implicitly through some of the features plugged in), they'll pick the win
by mochomocha 4y ago
... Metrics tracked in AB test. So even if it's not explicitly encoded in the algo (or implicitly through some of the features plugged in), they'll pick the winning cell as long as it doesn't hurt Elon's metrics (I'm just parroting the comment you quoted).
It doesn't have to be in the algorithm for the systems to be tweaked to please Elon vanity metrics.
[I've been running lots of ML AB tests over the years, some in organizations of similar size & complexity as Twitter]
- btown 4y agoIt’s just a two-pass EM (Elon Maximization) algorithm!
- threeseed 4y agoThat lines up with reporting from Casey Newton a few days ago where a handful of VIPs e.g. Musk, LeBron James, AOC were being used as weather vanes to understand what the algorithm was doing. It definitely isn't just metrics. Any algorithm change that negatively affected Musk was clearly not going live.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- db48x 4y agoDo you think the code looked like that prior to Elon's purchase? I suspect that there was another name there before. Separately, which of these groups do you think that they use as a control?
- jefftk 4y ago> which of these groups do you think that they use as a control? When you run an A/B test you randomly divide your users into groups, one (treatment) getting the new behavior and one (control) getting the current production behavior. So your question doesn't make much sense?
- db48x 4y agoDepends on the question. If you want to answer a question like “does change X increase engagement?” then a straight A/B test works. But if you want to answer one like “does change X increase engagement while (favoring/not favoring) group 1 over group 2?”, then an A/B test plus measuring groups 1 and 2 will not work without a control group, because without controls you don’t know if any changes to engagement for your measured groups are significant. There is some threshold of change to the engagement for the measured groups which is too small to be significant, and you should ignore results that only measure that noise.
- underdown 4y agoYou’re describing a multivariate test. Two groups under two different algorithm variants. Multivariate tests still require control groups.
- KarlKemp 4y agoThere is absolutely no reason to believe there was another Single user getting this treatment before. The Elon-case was just copy & pasted as an ego-stroking hack.
- philosopher1234 4y agoi think he means trump, and i think it would've been strategically wise to give trump special treatment (tho probably not ideal)
- db48x 4y agoActually, my first thought was the previous owner, or perhaps Twitter itself. But I left the question open, since it doesn’t matter who.
- mynameisvlad 4y agoConsidering I had to look up who the Twitter CEO even was before Musk, I’m going to say that no, they didn’t do the same thing to themselves.
- db48x 4y agoYour memory of who the previous CEO was is not evidence one way or the other.
- mynameisvlad 4y agoYou would think someone forcing themselves up to the top of a feed designed to catch your attention would be a little bit more memorable than “I had to look up what he was even called”. You didn’t even know what his title was, ffs. I’m sure your simping for Elon is highly appreciated. Maybe he’ll let you taste his boots next.
- db48x 4y ago
- threeseed 4y ago> I suspect that there was another name there before Who ? Musk is unique in being obsessed with being liked and relevant. All of the other social CEOs including Porag and Jake have never really cared that much. And none of them participated in contributing content anything close to what Musk does.
- slim 4y agoI don't think so. If the token was "author_is_jake" for example, it would have changed to "author_is_ceo" on second pass
- winternett 4y agoI think a lot of it is lies... I used to observe that tweeting anything remotely political went straight to trending timelines, so did tweets about crypto and NFTs... I doubt that Twitter and most of these social platforms are driven by Ai... Maintaining and changing complex algos could not be done on a rapid pace like what occurs now... I think Twitter has moderators, and scripts that control everything, and it can be more easily adjusted to tweak what is visible on the platform based on whatever agenda they want to represent (politics, revenue, PR/damage control). Twitter frequently bends the rules to serve celebrities, politics, and sponsors and for that they need to be able to quickly adjust scripts. True Ai is meant to function on it's own with minimal intervention, and therein a simple change to a massive logic scheme would completely FUBAR everything. I think there are rooms full of people that filter and either promote or suppress posts on Twitter every day, namely suppressing any tweets critical of the platform and it's owner... I've noticed that at night time hours, moderation of Tweets is less restrictive as a cue to what goes on there. There are certain topics that are not moderated as heavily as others (3d Design and other non-controversial topics), and some topics (for example music and porn) that are restricted heavily visibility-wise because they force people to run ads to rank in trending (because it generates a lot of opportunistic money for Twitter as a platform). Users that are critical of the platform and Elon and his allies (for example) can easily be neutered by moderators and put on shadow ban for any period of time in order to preserve the illusion of calm concerning Twitter operations. Complaints about Twitter only become visible when the majority of the audience tweets about problems (as that can't be moderated out without exposing moderation). It's pretty much all smoke and mirrors there in order to maintain order in my opinion, and it's pretty much futile and torturous to people who just want to create and seize opportunity for their business without spending tons of money on platform marketing...
- throwaway202303 4y ago[flagged]