Days after Elon Musk pledged to make Twitter’s recommendation algorithm public, the social media giant found itself scrambling to take down source code leaked anonymously online.
Twitter will open source all code used to recommend tweets on March 31st
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 17, 2023
The New York Times broke news of the leak on Sunday, saying Twitter sent a copyright infringement notice asking GitHub to purge the code an anonymous user posted to one of its forums. GitHub complied, according to the notice filed through the U.S. District Court in Twitter’s hometown of San Francisco.
Twitter also asked GitHub to disclose the source of the leak, according to the Times.
Save for the poop emoji auto-reply sent to all press requests as part of the company’s media blackout since Musk took the helm, Twitter has yet to respond to The Standard or any outlet seeking comment.
GitHub said that while it normally doesn’t elaborate on why it removes content, it made Twitter’s takedown request public “in the interest of transparency.”
