X is dramatically expanding its open-source footprint, releasing the source code for the 'For You' feed's core ranking engine on GitHub under an Apache 2.0 license — and adding a transparency tool that lets users see if their account or posts have been affected by its ranking systems.
The release is roughly 10 to 15 times larger than the company's previous open-source efforts. It includes the model configuration, filters, and core ranking system details — crucially, the parameters used to weight different signals, key to understanding which posts are actually displayed. 'You'll get the core ranking code that pulls posts and ranks them for any given user and assembles the feed,' X's VP of Product Keith Coleman told TechCrunch. 'Some of those systems, like the ranker and the score, you can even run yourself outside the company.'
Before launch, external researchers familiar with recommendation systems were able to get the 'score' — the numerical value calculated for every post — running outside of X, a milestone for the company's transparency efforts. Developers can now submit pull requests to the repository, which X engineers will consider incorporating into the live algorithm. 'How cool would it be for the X algorithm to be not just visible to the public, but also, like, by the public?,' Coleman said.
Alongside the code, X is rolling out an 'Under the Hood' page in the app's settings. Users who have posted ten or more times in the past month can download their aggregate stats as a JSON file, showing if any labels have been applied to their account or posts over the past calendar month — effectively a way to check for 'de-boosting' or 'ghost-banning.' The tool starts as a pilot with accounts at least a year old before broader rollout.
Some systems are excluded from the release, notably those using Grok to predict rule-violating content — kept private to stop bad actors from working around the rules and flooding the network with spam.
The changes address long-running concerns about how X's algorithm influences politics and misinformation — claims of 'shadowbanning' date back years before Elon Musk bought the platform, when Republicans in Congress alleged the then-Twitter leaned too far left. Notably, X has become less transparent in other areas since going private, no longer reporting user metrics, revenue, or government takedown requests to the SEC.
