A developer discovered a U.S. government intervention tool hidden away in the recently open-sourced recommendation algorithm released by Twitter last week.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk released a portion of the platform’s recommendation algorithm on GitHub, a website that enables programmers to share and work on open-source code.
There have long been concerns about government influence on Twitter, which many on the left brushed off as a ‘conspiracy theory.’
However, developer Steven Tey turned those purported ‘conspiracy theories’ into ‘fact’ after discovering a mechanism that allows the government to alter the Twitter algorithm.
According to Trey, the government can swoop in at anytime and alter the platform’s algorithm.
Trey wrote: “When needed, the government can intervene with the Twitter algorithm. In fact, @TwitterEng (Twitter Engineering) even has a class for it – ‘GovernmentRequested.'”
The researcher also provided a direct link to the code on GitHub for public review.
Elon Musk has been calling for Twitter’s algorithm to be open source since March last year.
Musk later stated, “Our ‘algorithm’ is overly complex & not fully understood internally. People will discover many silly things, but we’ll patch issues as soon as they’re found!”
Trey also found the algorithm considers a user’s following-to-follower ratio, with page rankings affecting accounts with a high following but a low number of followers.
The algorithm also promotes Twitter Blue subscribers into categories like “power users,” “Democrat users,” “Republican users,” and “@elonmusk.”
The researcher also identified elements that could impact a user’s “reputation score,” like being blocked or muted, and also factors influencing whether a user’s content will appear in the “For You” recommendations sections.
Try also noted how presidential elections directly affect how the algorithm works.
In the wake of the recent Twitter files drops, the discovery of the “GovernmentRequested” intervention tool shows how deeply the deep state influenced the presidential election.
The documents also highlighted how Twitter cooperated with law enforcement and the FBI in its content moderation.
According to a batch of documents recently made public by Michael Shellenberger, several former FBI agents worked for Twitter, showing the extent to which governments influenced and controlled the platform.
It was reported former FBI Supervisory Special Agent Elvis Chan was the primary person behind multiple censorship requests, including censoring Hunter Biden’s contentious “laptop from hell.”
Another set of documents also showed how the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security pressured Twitter to moderate content and used information portals to instruct the platform on which accounts to block.
The discovery of the “GovernmentRequested” tool has yet to be publicly addressed by Twitter.
READ: Elon Musk Removes New York Times Twitter Verification, Calls The Outlet ‘Unreadable Diarrhea’
